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Saturday, October 6, 2012

Chicken-Scratch-Saturday: Good Will Halloweening

I have always hate-hate-HATED those realy cheap, flimsy, poly Halloween costumes. Not that I haven't resorted to them a few times over the years. Especially if my little one would simply not make it to his next birthday if he wasn't dressed up as some character that I could never in a million years replicate on my own, or if my little princess happened to see the prettiest princess costume EVER and would DIE if she could not have that exact one.

And even though I CAN sew, I have never had the desire to make any of my kids a costume for Halloween if sewing was involved. Never, I say.

Let's face it, those poly costumes are quick and easy, and Halloween can get super busy when your kids are little, between classroom parties, community fairs, scout parades, parties, and let's not forget the actual night of trick-or-treating. So it's very tempting to just pluck that cheap-o costume off the rack and be done with it.

But one of the things I love best about Halloween is the potential for creativity. Between decorating your house, carving the jack-o-lanterns, and helping your kids figure out what they're going to be, it's a smorgasbord of outside-the-box thinkin'.

And we all want our kids to be outside-the-box thinkers, don't we?

So. My first stop with my kids for costume shopping is not the seasonal Halloween store, and it's not WalMart. It's Goodwill.

At Goodwill, the clothing items (shirts, pants, skirts, dresses) generally run about $3.50 to $5.00. Accessories even cheaper. With a little imagination and only a few dollars, you and your child can find the perfect things to make a wide variety of costumes, such as...

pirate
hobo
prom queen, bride, bridesmaid (dead or otherwise)
clown (evil or otherwise)
cheerleader
hippie
zombie
farmer, cowboy/girl
black cat
scarecrow
goth
rock/pop star

The list is endless.

Of course, you might still need a few accessories at a Halloween store. For example, your child might find all the trappings to be a zombie, such as oversized clothing that he can rip and tear and bloody, but he'll still need the make-up. Or maybe she found just what she needed to be a cute little cowgirl, but she still needs the hat.
So get the hat at the costume section of WalMart, braid her hair into some pigtails, and add a few freckles with your eyeliner, and you've got yourself a cheap, no-sew, creative costume that your kid thought up and picked out.









Now, how to carve that jack-o-lantern this year....





Image courtesy: coolest-homemade-costumes.com
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In case you didn't know it, I'm like the queen of blog-hoppin' lately. It's kind of like square dancing but without the dated outfits, smelly gym, and elderly caller.

Here's the schedule I keep:
Monday: Homestead Revival's Barn Hop, The Chicken Chick's Clever Chicks, A Cat-Like Curiosity's Monday Mantras Link-Up, and @ Home Take 2's Mom's Monday Mingle
Tuesday: Heavenly Homemaker's Gratituesday,   Crafty Garden Mama's Tuesday Greens, and The Wrinkled Mommy's Tuesday Archive Link-Up
Wednesday: My Life and Kids Finding the Funny, Tilly's Nest's Down Home, and Crafty Spices Wordless Wednesday
Thursday: A Rural Journal's Rural Thursday Blog Hop, and Two In Diapers' Mommy Brain Mixer
Friday: Deborah Jean's Dandelion House's Farmgirl Friday, Little Becky Homecky's Fantabulous Friday, and Oh So Amelia's Friday Chaos
Saturday: Camera Critter's Life With Dogs Pet Blogger Hop and Country Momma Cooks Saturday Link-Up.


Since today is Saturday, that means I'm linking yesterday's post "Chick Update" with Camera Critter's Life With Dogs Pet Blogger Hop and Country Momma Cooks Saturday Link-Up.




Come join the fun!




5 comments:

  1. Hi, thanks for coming by my blog, A Bowl of Noodles. I am totally into making Halloween costumes for my daughter. This year I am sewing but in times past we have used old ballet costumes and updated them. a store bought costume (she actually wore for 3 Halloweens) with accessories we made and so on. Now I am working on a costume for Noodles (our pug). I like the creativity is unleashes in all of us.
    Love Noodles' Mommy #2

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh yeah, I forgot to add Mommy #1 was adopted from China 13 years ago which makes her just 14. A teen. I don't know how you manage with so many teens. In any case, I threw that out to you because I am always looking for sites where adoption and adoption issues are discussed. I am relatively lucky in that my daughter, so far, has had very few issues. A lot of that is because where we live there are (1) many Asians and (2) many girls adopted from China. So she is sheltered a bit from being perceived as "different." However, I know they may be lurking for when she hits the "WHO AM I" stage of teendom. So again, thanks for dropping by and letting me know you are out there.
    Katherine (Mommy #2)

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  3. (reply button not working)

    Hi Noodles/Katherine! Glad to have you here. I don't post about adoption issues as much anymore, but I do from time to time. Thanks for coming by!

    ReplyDelete
  4. We go back and forth on the costumes. we've done "make our own" and we've done store bought. Last year my little one wanted to be a wizard, I put together a cape and wizard hat and wand. This year though he wanted to be Hawkeye from the Avengers. I went lazy. Today we bought the packaged vest that came with the bow and arrows. and it was on sale for $12. So not too bad. Especially since the others were 20-40$! I wasn't about to pay that!
    Stopping by from TALU

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    Replies
    1. Hi Tracey. They really have gotten cheaper in the last few years, haven't they? And if they want something very specific, you really just HAVE to go store-bought. And believe me, I don't judge, b/c I've gone that route many a time! I do like trying to encourage their creativity when I can, and I've found that hitting Goodwill first helps us with that. Thanks for stopping by!

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