It's that time of year again! It's so much fun to come up with Halloween costumes and I personally love to coordinate with my husband and now our kids as well. Need some costume inspiration? Check out these ideas!
I've always loved Halloween. I'm not much of a Do-It-Yourself'er except when it comes to costumes--something about the challenge of bringing a costume together is super fun. When my husband and I started dating we loved to come up with couples costumes and we've continued that on to family costumes now that we have kids. Here are some of my favorite costumes from the past ten years as our family has grown!
Halloween Costumes for the Whole Family
Having grown up in the 90's, my husband and I grew up playing Mario Bros. and love playing the newer versions on the Wii. We decided to dress up as Mario and Luigi one year. I found the hats on eBay and bought cheap suspenders to incorporate. We also bought some toy coins and hung boxes from our ceiling with giant question marks on them-every time someone punched a box, coins rained down just like in the game!
The following year we decided to go with a Gladiator-theme and dressed up in homemade togas. We bought white sheets and cut them up, pinning them around us and put garland and leaf wreaths in our hair. It was super simple and cheap!
After that year our family expanded as we had our daughter, Harper. We decided to be Fred, Wilma, and Pebbles from the Flinstones! My costume was simply a white sheet cut up and pinned to look caveman-esque. I bought white foam balls to make a necklace and orange hair spray. For my husband's costume I bought a couple yards of cheap orange fabric and hot-glued black patches on. For his tie I went through my scrap fabrics and cut a long strip and then tied it similar to Fred Flinstone's oversized tie. We also painted my husband's hair black with spray from a costume shop.
For Harper to be Pebbles, I bought her a green shirt and blue shorts from a thrift store and glued black triangles on her shirt. She didn't have much hair so we used an orange headband with a big flower, and to top everything off I bought doggie bone treats and pinned them to our bow and hair.
The following year, I'll be honest-I was just too lazy to make costumes for my husband and myself. I found a cute lion costume at a garage sale and painted Harper's face a little bit-she was adorable. It was the first year we took her trick-or-treating and she had so much fun!
The next year we'd added a new member to the family and wanted to do coordinating outfits. After some thought, we decided on the Wizard of Oz, mostly because I'm all about recycling and we still had the lion costume. I found a Dorothy costume at a garage sale and ruby shoe-covers on Amazon. I happened upon the perfect Dorothy wig at a thrift store and that finished up our kids' costumes!
My husband decided to go all out to become the Tin Man and used cardboard boxes, silver spray paint, and a lot of duct tape to construct his costume. We also bought silver face paint and hairspray, plus an oil filter for a hat! I think it came together amazingly. My costume was simple-I already had the jeans, boots, shirt, and hat. I bought some discount floral decorations to spruce up the hat and ripped up an old dishcloth to make patches. One of my friends (who lives on a farm!) gave me some straw to finish up my costume.
We love to visit the Minnesota Renaissance Festival every year and one of our favorite parts is dressing up! In 2017 and 2018, we dressed the part and had a blast. Tyler's costume is from Oriental Trading, and so is my dress in the first photo. My dress in the second photo is from Amazon!
For fun, one of our friends hosted a Murder Mystery Party where we dressed up like characters from the 20's. I was a flapper and Tyler was a 20's baseball player! This would be a great look for Halloween. Check out everyone's costumes and this fun adult party idea in my full blog post!
In 2017, we decided to do a Goldilocks and the Three Bears theme! My husband and I got wookie pajamas from Target and bear hoods from Amazon. I bought a big piece of felt and cut out an oval that we just pinned to our bodies. Our son's costume was from Amazon and it just barely fit! Then we painted little bear faces. For our daughter, we grabbed a dress from a thrift store-super simple idea that I think turned out pretty cute!
Clearly we love to dress up because we had another themed party-this time it was a masquerade! My dress came from the clearance section at JCPenneys and Tyler just donned formal-wear. Our masks are from Amazon!
This year in 2018 we're going as The Incredibles! I wrote up a full tutorial on how to make the simple logos for our shirts and where we purchased all of our gear. I'm so excited to head out this Halloween!
What are you wearing for Halloween?
Let me know in the comments!
Amber Ludwig says
Adorable!! Such fun ideas and I love that you make them too!! I do the same, with some purchased pieces along the way 😉 Once we had my son hubby and I stopped dressing up but maybe next year we'll do a family one!! This year my son was William Wallace from Braveheart!
Linda Manns says
These are such great ideas. Today is the big day. Thank you s much for sharing. Enjoy and be safe.