DIY Halloween Costume Ideas

DIY Halloween costumes
We are still working on our Halloween costumes this year, so look out for that. They are on the villain-side of the character world, but the kids are excited! We have had some great past Halloween costumes, and unfortunately not enough time for full tutorials. Hopefully this helps give you some Halloween DIY costume inspiration. You don’t need to know how to sew, or own a sewing machine. You can do it!

Oh, and please excuse the poor quality of the photos – an old iphone, inexperience behind the camera and rushing from Halloween party to Halloween party to blame! Stay tuned all the way to the bottom of this post, because if none of our costumes meet your fancy, we’ve listed some other fantastic ideas!

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TROLLS HALLOWEEN COSTUME

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diy-trolls-halloween-costume

diy-poppy-troll-halloween-costume

diy-trolls-costume-for-kids-halloween

You can get all the details about how to make our DIY Trolls costume on the blog post here. This was one of my favorites. We used a lot of regular clothes (that the kids wore all year-long) and felt. The second Trolls movie is coming to theaters this November, so it’s a great time to dress like our favorites; Branch, happy Poppy and all their colorful friends.

HARRY POTTER HALLOWEEN COSTUMES

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diy harry potter costume accessories

Our kids are big Harry Potter fans. With two boys and a girl, Jessica’s had the perfect trio of Harry, Hermione and Ron Weasley. We pulled these costumes together easily, and the kids still play with the robes, wands and magic spell books. Details below…

  • Buy the Harry Potter robe at Nordstrom Rack for less than $25, or here. To make the wands, find sticks in the backyard. Use hot glue to add layers, vines, and texture to the stick. Once dry, paint the sticks copper or brown. We used plaid paint for this.
  • You can easily find ties for Harry Potter costumes, but we’re suckers for anything DIY, plus we didn’t want to spend anymore money on this costume. So, we used felt and cut it to look like a tie with stripes. We used hot glue to stick it to a hair clip, and then clipped it onto the white shirt.
  • The spell book is a must because every wizard needs his/her spells. Again, I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on this, so I bought a journal with kraft color pages, painted the cover and binding a maroon color (with acrylic paint), and then used gold vinyl to add names, and a title of the spell book. I used my Silhouette for this, but you can buy a gold metallic sharpie to write the info on the cover of the book. I went the extra mile on this one, and wrote some of the famous Harry Potter spells in it. The kids LOVED it!
  • As for the rest of the costume, we’re BIG, BIG fans of buying clothing items our kids can re-wear throughout the year. So, you can find some of the other pieces here: boy black jeans | grey sweaters | harry potter glasses | Hermione pleated skirt |

DEEP-SEA THEMED HALLOWEEN COSTUMES: JELLYFISH, DEADLIEST CATCH FISHERMAN & DEEP SEA DIVER

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DIY jellyfish costumes

DIY jellyfish costume

deep sea costumes

diy family costumes

Our kids were really into all-things ocean one year, so we decided on a deep-sea theme. Jessica’s oldest was a fisherman from the show Deadliest Catch. Her daughter was a jellyfish with glowing lights, and her youngest was a deep-sea diver. All of them are no-sew, and fun to make! Looks at those cute smurfs, too! Details below…

  • Deadliest Catch Crab Fisherman: This one is so easy! We cut out paper crabs to place in the bucket with the netting. Also, for the hat, we bought it online, and then added the name of a ship to it with a fabric pen, so we knew his “ship crew.” Other pieces bought here: orange bib or this one | net |
  • Jellyfish: Buy an umbrella and tape and hot glue paper streamers, lights, mesh tubes and ribbon all along the inside and around the edge. Make sure the lights are battery operated and light enough to tape in the umbrella. For the outfit, you can find clothing here: metallic leggings | white or silver tulle or ruffled skirt | shite long sleeve shirt | clear umbrella | blue twinkle lights | mesh tubes |
  • Deep Sea Diver: My little swimmer loved to dress up like a diver. We bought him tight black pants and a long sleeve shirt (like long underwear tight), used a ski mask to cover his head, and the DIY piece was with the oxygen tanks. First, spray paint two liter bottles. Once dry, tape them together with electrical tape, and glue them together in the back. You can add straps with rope so he/she can wear like a backpack. For a belt of supplies, use black electrical tape (make sure it’s double-sided so it doesn’t stick, and add velcro to the ends so it can be easily put on and removed as a belt), and snap sponge curlers through it. We used our swim goggles and snorkels for extra props. Also, I used black tubing from Home Depot, inserted it into one of the bottles (glued it to the bottom), and attached a water bottle top to the end of it, and it was his mouth-piece. Sorry I don’t have a close-up photo!

WITCHFUL THINKING

If Halloween really isn’t your thing, but you want to me festive, this is the perfect combo of easy and cute. Details here.

witchful-thinking-diy-shirt

 

GIMME’ MORE!! 
There are so many good and creative Halloween costumes to choose from! Make sure to check out all these amazing DIY Family Costumes:

Stranger Things | Hello Whimsy
Hot Dog, Ketchup & Mustard | Pretty Life Girls
15 Family Costume Ideas | Design Dazzle
Dr. Who | Simple Practical Beautiful
Circus Themed Costumes | Make It and Love It
Shabby Apple and Disco Ball | Among the Youngs
Crafting in the Rain
Bandits | Sugar Bee Crafts
Firefighter Themed| The Scrap Shoppe Blog
Troll Hair | Fleece Fun 

 

Gnome For the Holidays

diy gnome wine toppers

We love our wine, and a glass of wine is better when shared with a friend, that’s for sure. Give wine to friends and family this holiday season, or have friends over and make sure wine is ready at the bar, with these adorable DIY gnome wine bottle toppers. They add that extra touch of homemade love and cuteness to an ordinary bottle of wine, and they are so easy to make. No sewing required.

Momtastic has all the details here.

Thanks to Cole and Dainer  for sharing some of the fluffy faux fur from her amazing blankets for the gnome beards. The fur on her blankets is like heaven on my family’s skin when we have snuggle sessions.

Cheers to a happy holiday!

Sparkly Holiday Vibes With These DIY Embellished Shoes

diy embellished shoes for a glam holiday party

We have a little sparkle in our step this holiday season…and it makes us so happy. We have absolutely no idea why we haven’t made DIY embellished shoes before! This was such an easy, and fun DIY project, and the result is sparkly goodness just in time for all those holiday parties. Momtastic has all the details here on how we created these totally affordable DIY embellished shoes.

Remember ladies…leave a little sparkle wherever you go, whether it’s in flats or heels.

diy embellished shoes for a glam holiday party

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DIY Rocket Popsicle Piñata

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Jessica’s kids birthdays are close to July 4th, plus we love to celebrate America, so it’s always a really busy time of year and we are in the party mode. This year, we’re celebrating with all things red, white and blue. A party just isn’t a party with young kids without the joy of hitting a piñata. We couldn’t find the perfect (and affordable) red, white and blue piñata, so we made one with the iconic patriotic popsicle in mind. It’s DIY rocket popsicle piñata! It only took a couple hours from start to finish, so you still have time!

Materials:

  • Red, white and blue tissue paper
  • Scissors
  • Pinata, frappuccino shaped
  • Glue stick, or
  • Strips of cardboard
  • Packaging tape

Directions:

Step 1: Remove all existing tissue paper from the pinata. We found a frappuccino shaped piñata at Walmart for less than $15, left the cardboard shape and stripped it of all pink and white tissue paper. Remember to fill the piñata with goodies before you cover it with new fringe.

frappuccino pinata

Step 2: Cut strips of red, white and blue tissue paper.

Step 3: Cut fringe on each strip of tissue paper.

Step 4: With 12 inch strips of cardboard scraps (about 3-4 inches thick), position them from the lid of the piñata frappuccino shape, and angle them up. This is hard to explain, and sorry for our poor photos, but the 4 cardboard scraps will be used to made a little square (or for lack of better words, nipple) on top of the popsicle, to look like the real thing. We used packaging tape to keep it in place. We added the white cardboard tube on the bottom of dry cleaner hangers to create that indention affect along the side of the piñata, but it didn’t really work, so don’t worry about that!

craft with cardboard

Step 5: Starting from the bottom, glue the fringe onto the cardboard. We found it’s best to do two layers of fringe on each layer. You can glue the strips of fringe on top of each other before gluing onto the pinata.

Step 6: Continue layer by layer, blue on the bottom, then white and finally red. Cut a piece of cardboard the shape of a popsicle stick, and with an X-acto knife, cut a slit on the bottom of the popsicle. Insert the cardboard popsicle stick. Hang and have fun!

Enjoy…and then grab a real Rocket popsicle from the freezer to ring in this 4th of July!

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Delicious 3-Ingredient Fruit Dip

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Easy and delicious is one combo we can’t resist. If your looking for a yummy recipe to share at your next BBQ, or a festive side on the 4th of July, we’ve got an amazing recipe for you. Our grandma always has a tray of strawberries with this amazing 3-ingredient fruit dip every Easter. We devour it. We love anything with cream cheese, so it was bound to be a favorite from the beginning. Place it on a tray, pack it in a jar, dip strawberries or take a spoonful – whatever you do, make it! Yum.

Ingredients:

  • 8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
  • Kraft jet-puff marshmallows, 7 oz.
  • 1 tsp Vanilla

Mix all ingredients with a mixer in a bowl, refrigerate and serve with a large tray of strawberries. It’s that easy!

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strawberry-cream-cheese-dip

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