3 Top Tips for Making Halloween Costumes

If you're thinking about making your own Halloween costumes this year, you need to take a look at these top tips.
3 Top Tips for Making Halloween Costumes

Last update: 28 January, 2021

Halloween is becoming an increasingly popular holiday. So, in this article, we want to give you some advice on how to make your own DIY Halloween costumes.

Nowadays, many people choose to decorate their house from top to bottom for the holiday. From decorating the fireplace, to hanging decorations on the windows so that they can be seen from outside, and hanging strings of bats from the ceiling. The only limit is your imagination.

Other people opt for throwing themed dinner parties – the table decorated to perfection, and covered with plates of delicious Halloween dishes, such as pumpkin cupcakes or any number of other tasty treats. Great costumes are the perfect finishing touch to the celebrations.

While you can buy them ready-made in stores, you can also make your Halloween costumes yourself. It’s cheaper, and if you like DIY, it can also be great fun. If you have small children, they’ll love getting involved in making their own costumes.

Store-bought vs. DIY costumes.

1. DIY Halloween costumes: reuse, recycle

From T-shirts and bed sheets to plastic and cardboard – combine them in the right way, and almost anything can be used to make a really fantastic costume.

For example, a simple white T-shirt can be used to make all kinds of different Halloween costumes. Simply rip it in a few places, and you have the basis for a great zombie costume, or maybe that girl from The Exorcist. Combine it with some ripped black stockings, and you’ll have the perfect outfit.

As you’ll probably need to wear something else underneath so you don’t get cold, it’s best to use a large, baggy T-shirt.

Alternatively, you could go down the classic route and use an old white bed sheet to create a ghost costume. Similarly, you can use black clothing for things like vampire costumes.

If you want, you can even make a mask out of cardboard. To make things easier, you can simply print out the image you want, and glue it to the surface of the cardboard. With a little creativity, you can make a fantastic costume from items that are simply lying around the house.

2. Use face or fabric paint

Day of the Dead makeup.

If you’ve decided to simply use clothes and fabric, you can use makeup and fabric paint to take your costume to the next level. People usually use white, red, orange and black face paints. There are thousands of possibilities when it comes to Halloween makeup, and you’ll find plenty of ideas and tutorials online.

Face paints are really easy to find in stores. You’ll also find body glitter, sponges and makeup brushes. Face paint is easy to take off with soap and water, and you don’t even need to scrub.

You can also decorate the costume itself with paint, either using normal paint or specialist fabric paint. It simply depends on whether you’re planning on using the clothes again. If you’re not, you can decorate them with blood, spiders, or anything else you want.

As we’ve already said, there are hundreds of possibilities, especially if you like DIY.

3. Accessorize

Accessorizing can turn a good costume into a great costume.

Whether hand-made or store-bought, accessories will give your costume the perfect finishing touch. For example, if you want to make a classic Day of the Dead Catrina costume, it should be fairly easy to make your own crown of flowers.

If you really want to bring your costume to life, plastic cobwebs, skulls, claws, and knives are all great options to keep in mind. Plus, if you want to do a quick photo call with all your guests, you could also buy mini witches’ hats or Halloween-themed glasses for everyone to wear. You could also buy or make horror movie masks.

If you want to make a more complex costume, but you’re not great at sewing, you can always use fabric glue instead. It can often be enough to hold everything together for the whole evening.

And remember, you can even coordinate Halloween costumes, choosing characters from the same movie, or one particular theme. This is a great option when it comes to making children’s costumes.