Homemade and Sustainable Halloween Outfits
I have always loved the idea of family Halloween outfits. Some people think it’s cheesy and that’s cool, but I frigging love them. My husband has always been on the cheesy-naff side of things and never wanted to BUT this year Little Bear decided she wants all of us to dress as the Mickey Mouse characters and so he has jumped on board. She even decided who was who so really he had no choice! I’m so excited.
Obviously, I could have bought all the outfits for everyone but the cost of that would have easily been into three figures and that’s just money we don’t have. So I have made them by putting together second-hand clothes (mostly found on vinted) and a bit of ingenuity.
Little Bear as Daisy Duck
I adore this outfit!
I bought the skirt and headband from Vinted and added a top she already had.
She now wears them most days regardless of what we are doing!
Brother Bear as Micky Mouse
This one is super cute and easy!
It’s a long black top that he already had, a pair of red jammie shorts and then I stuck two white spots on the shorts for the buttons.
I made the ears using black card and a red headband we already owned.
Mama Bear as Minnie
For this one, I got a second-hand red dress and simply ironed on white spots using wonder web. The spots are cut out of an old bedsheet. I simply drew around a glass, cut them out, did the same on the wonder web, and ironed on.
Admittedly I did big ones and only on the front but I was tight on time and they are little enough to still be thrilled.
We already had the Minnie ears; they are child-sized so a bit small but more than okay for this occasion.
Dada Bear as Donald Duck
Paul already had a blue shirt, as you can see it’s dark blue and Donalds is light blue, however, this is good enough as buying a new light blue shirt was going to be at least £10 which is out of our budget and something we consider to be an unnecessary purchase for one wear.
We decided to make the red bowtie too. Paul really dislikes bowties and we didn’t know anyone with a red one so we couldn’t borrow it, so I made it out of paper!
I know it’s not the greatest thing in the world but it made our children really happy and luckily they are too young to be fussy about these things – luckily they don’t mind that Donald doesn’t have a hat either!
Aunty Bear as Goofy
The only ‘new’ item for Summer’s Goofy is a long-sleeved orange turtleneck which was a secondhand find. Unfortunately, it hasn’t arrived yet to be able to show the intended look.
The waistcoat she is going to wear is Will’s and whilst it’s not black like Goofy’s it’s close enough that she didn’t see value in buying a new one.
Her ears are hilarious and are simply black socks hooked onto a cat ear headband and again, to save on money, Goofy will not be rocking his usual green hat.
I hope the homemade-ness and not-perfectness of these outfits will inspire you to give it a go yourself. I have strong memories of homemade outfits as a child which I want to hand down to our children.
I also dislike how cheaply made and (mostly) dangerous children’s dressing-up clothes tend to be. This isn’t to say I haven’t gotten a few secondhand ones for the children’s dressing up box but I do worry when they play in them as they aren’t subject to safety checks and as such are very flammable – not a great thing on a night full of candles and lit pumpkins.
Do you like to make your own Halloween costumes? And where do you stand on group or family costume themes?
Happy Halloween!
Livvy and Summer
