Halloween Costumes for Toddlers

[happy*mama]

Is anyone else making a costume for their toddler or buying a one for their toddler?  We won't do real trick-or-treating, but we like the fun of dressing up and seeing the pumpkins carved and lit and visiting family & friends.  Will anyone else be doing this?  My ds is 26 months and doesn't understand why we would dress up and each time I have asked him what he'd like to dress as he says " a tractor trailer truck".  He loves tractor trailer trucks!  I have offered up other traditional boy costume ideas like fireman or turtle and he just say "yea", but I have not idea if he will be ok with being dressed up since he is kind of picky about what he wears.  He did come up with the idea of a "bat", which I liked, but then he went back to the tractor trailer truck idea.  Last year I made him a bunny costume.  It was fun!  Not sure what to do this year.

[Mal85]

We go trick-or-treating. DD's first Halloween, I bought a regular old costume for her and didn't love it. The nice thing about it was that it was big enough that I could put warm clothes on under it. But it wasn't very cute (she was Holly Hobbie). Last year, she was a fairy. I picked up some wings and a ribbon headpiece from a local craft fair, but other than that it was just her clothes. She had a poofy dress up skirt I put on her with leggings underneath and a warm, comfy sweater I put on with it. My sister added some glitter on her face. Even though it was just thrown together, it came out way cuter than the year before.

This year, she's going to be a witch. I picked up a toddler size hat at Target. Other than that, we're going the same route as last year. She has a deep purple petti-skirt I'll put on her with some black leggings she already had and a black shirt I picked up for super cheap. I think we'll attempt some face-painting this year to top it off. So, I don't really make her costumes but we also don't go for the pre-packaged store-bought ones either. We just throw together things we have for the most part.

[happy*mama]

Those are best kind of costumes, I think!  I feel that if I had a daughter I would be able to figure this out easier, sparkles, poofy skirts, wings, ribbons, etc.  My boy is a boy and we don't do watch tv and he doesn't wear character clothing so that route is not an option.  He doesn't know what superheroes are or even the Cars movie franchise.  So, I do need to make the costumer or through something together if I can figure something out.  I don't like any of the costumes I've seen in the stores.  Not sure what to do.  Low budget and time are factors too.

[andromedajulie]

Happy Mama, I would make him the tractor trailer costume! I bet you could do it. (not sure how - maybe a rectangular box with a cutout for his body - you two could decorate it together, attach some other box pieces???) I remember as a kid one year when my brother was a PacMan game - not traditional either, but very cool. I make my kids' costumes here too, don't really believe in buying them (though there were a couple years I did). DD 9 yo will be an Egyptian queen this year (easy) - but my 14 yo, I'm not sure yet. She just likes to run around and will enjoy the dark! Maybe a belly dancer since I can just tie a coin scarf around her; on the other hand she sure likes to wear her red fire fighter hat around the house, so we will see! I try not to get stressed out, otherwise it's no fun!

[Comtessa]

I have a degree in costume design that I now only use for Halloween costumes, so we go a little overboard on our end.  :)  I've found that it works best when I have a general idea of the 'look' I want -- i.e., general colors/textures -- then I just go to the thrift store or look around my house with an eye for those things.  I've repurposed things like vinyl placemats, work gloves, baseball caps, stuffed animals, hula hoops, etc.  Just needs a bit of creative thinking -- and not all that much time or energy.  And definitely not a lot of money. 

For DD's fist Halloween costume, she was a turtle.  I cut apart three secondhand shirts in varying shades of green and sewed them into a pair of footie pants (with big 'turtle feet') and a shirt, covered my bike helmet with a tie-dyed green shirt (looked just like a box-turtle shell pattern!) and strapped it to her back.  Then I made a little cap for her head and sewed eyes on either side that I cut off a stuffed alligator.  Not exactly time-efficient, but SO cute.  And you could totally dress a kid as a turtle with a green sweatsuit, green socks over shoes, green knit hat with ping-pong balls glued to it, and a garbage-can lid tied to her/his back.  For example.  The important thing is to think creatively about what you already have around or can come by easily/cheaply. 

This year, DD and DS are the Frog Prince and the Princess.  I'm draping her in green tulle and chiffon from a secondhand dress I cut apart and pinned/sewed back together to fit her like a fancy ball gown.  DS is in a frog suit someone gave us; I'll make a soft crown out of vinyl or felt to sew on top of it, glue some jewels onto it.  Then I'll probably dress myself up as a lily pad and put DS in the Ergo for trick-or-treating.  :)

A tractor trailer truck costume for a toddler is totally do-able.  Just color a cardboard box like a truck, staple on some bright 'wheels' (frisbees would work, or paper plates with aluminum foil glued on for "hubcaps," or coffee can lids, or just cutout cardboard circles), put an empty paper-towel tube on top for a smokestack, cut a space for his body to fit through the middle, make a steering wheel (a jar lid?) and then hang it from his shoulders with a repurposed pair of suspenders.  Get a plain baseball cap and write on it, "[Kid's name] Trucking Co."  Make a fun 'license plate' (i.e., "TRK R TRT").  Ta da!  Your LO is a truck.  You could even make him a trick-or-treat bucket to match the theme -- like an apple bushel basket decorated to look like a truck, too. 

ETA: Here's a great homemade truck costume from somebody's blog: http://projectsbycarm-crafts.blogspot.com/2010/02/cardboard-truck-costume.html

[~cassie]

Last year my boys were cowboys!  Just did jeans with a western shirt and a cowboy hat!

[Perdita_in_Ontario]

When DD was a toddler she was Pebbles (from The Flintstones) one year - fun fur made into a little over-the-shoulder dress - and then Lewis Carroll's Alice the next (blue dress and I made her a white apron - she carried a teapot with a plush mouse).

This year, DS will be 20 months. I had planned just to knit him a dinosaur hat and be done with it, since we're ToT-ing with his sister and likely he'll be Ergo'd - no point in having a full costume! Then I saw a pattern to make a sweater modeled on Max's Wild Thing wolf suit, so I'm knitting him that. It has a tail, but it's detachable, so it should work well.

[newmamalizzy]

We're going with a train engineer for DD (18 months).  She LOVES trains, and we already have some everyday striped overalls.  We're just adding a red bandana, engineer's hat, and train whistle.  I'm sure she'll want to use all of those things for dress-up, too!

[happy*mama]

Thank you for the suggestions!  andromedajulie and Comtessa thank you for your ideas for the tractor trailer truck costume.  I now have some ideas to work with for the truck.  I think I'll try it.

[chel]

For dd2 her first Halloween she wore an old costume from big sis (bumblebee).
This year dd2 loves spongebob and I found a costume for $2.50 at a thrift store. The hand-me-down costume from dd1 would have been a cheerleader for the college I went to, but we live in a place that is much colder and I can layer under spongebob better. Dd2 wears the costume daily!

[CassnBeth]

We will absolutely be going trick or treating again this year; DD is a fiend for holidays and I have had all my Halloween decorations up for a solid week already because she was so excited. She has stuck with her desire to be a ghost for the whole of the last year so that's what she will be. I bought a white, hooded terry cloth beach cover up one size too big, white tights and DD already has white sneakers; all I need now is for my wife to applique the ghost face on to the dress in black felt. Now I am looking around for all the other toddler Halloween events I can find in my area so DD can get the most possible joy out of this holiday.

[Perpetunia]

When my ds was 2 he was the mouse from the book, "If you give a mouse a cookie". He wore a long sleeved brown T shirt with some denim overalls. I had a mouse stuffed animal that I got at a thrift store for a couple bucks and I cut the tail and ears off it. I sewed the tail to the butt of the overalls and swewd the ears to a fabric headland. Painted on a mouse nose and whiskers with makeup and cut out pictures of cookies from a package and taped them to the overalls looking like they were sticking out of the pockets. It was super cute, comfy and easy to make.

[ThreeTwoFive]

New full time job for me = Old Navy chicken costume for him.  Total time spent = 10 minutes.  Arrived today.

[happy*mama]

I love this costume!  Hmmm, maybe he would go for this.  He loves the book, we already have overalls, and we also have the little stuffed mouse that came with the book (it was a gift).  This is my kind of costume!
 

Originally Posted by Perpetunia 

When my ds was 2 he was the mouse from the book, "If you give a mouse a cookie". He wore a long sleeved brown T shirt with some denim overalls. I had a mouse stuffed animal that I got at a thrift store for a couple bucks and I cut the tail and ears off it. I sewed the tail to the butt of the overalls and swewd the ears to a fabric headland. Painted on a mouse nose and whiskers with makeup and cut out pictures of cookies from a package and taped them to the overalls looking like they were sticking out of the pockets. It was super cute, comfy and easy to make.

[happy*mama]

That chicken costume is cute.  We have chickens, maybe my son would like this!  I would really like to make his costumer each year, but I don't know if I have time this year.  Will keep this one in mind.

Originally Posted by ThreeTwoFive 

New full time job for me = Old Navy chicken costume for him.  Total time spent = 10 minutes.  Arrived today.