We’ve all been there. It’s almost Halloween and you suddenly need a last minute costume for work or an event.  The stores are sold out of your size and you don’t have time to order one. Or you just don’t want to pay a lot of money for a costume you, or your kiddos will wear once.

When I was a kid there were Ben Cooper costumes, but mostly my mom made us costumes. That was the same for many kids. I feel that creativity is sometimes lost now, and I remember the costumes my mom made and not so much the bought ones.

This is part one of some ideas for those of you that need a quick costume or just want to make something more special. Most of these are made with items you likely have or can get inexpensively at a dollar store, big box store or even a thrift store.

Minnie Mouse or Mickey Mouse

(Image Credit and another tutorial at Southernfit.Blogspot.com)

Okay this one is incredibly easy. Grab a black long-sleeved T-shirt or even a short sleeved one. Make yourself a quick pair of mouse ears.

Here’s an easy tutorial. There are many more online!

Mickey Mouse:

For Mickey just grab a pair of red shorts, or red pants, and attach two pieces of white or yellow felt, cut into ovals for buttons.  If they are shorts you don’t care get ruined just use a bit of hot glue or fabric glue. If they are ones you want to reuse and wear later just tack them in place with safety pins or a couple of quick stitches with a needle and thread.  You can remove them afterwards.

Minnie Mouse:

For Minnie find a red or blue skirt and add white, felt, circles for polka dots, with either a hot glue gun or by using safety pins or a couple of stitches in the center of the felt.  Or if you have a red skirt with white polka dots you can wear that.

Another option that works well for many costumes is the tulle tutu skirt. These are actually quite easy to make and tulle is not that expensive. You can buy it precut for more money or just buy it by the yard and cut it yourself.

Here are a couple No Sew tutorial videos:

I have made these for my daughter before for princess dress-up play. I’ve also made smaller versions with elastic for her 18″ dolls! It’s super easy.

If you make a tulle skirt in red or blue, take the white, felt, dots and glue, safety pin, or sew them onto the shirt. If you want to do Mickey Mouse with a skirt, just add two large, oval, yellow pieces of felt to the front for his buttons!

You can add other accessories like gloves, black tights, a yellow bow tie or felt shoe covers as well.

If you want to go a step further you can do face paint as well!

Green Army Men from Toy Story

(Image Credit and another tutorial at brit.co)

Yet another relatively easy and inexpensive costume to make is based on the Green Army Men from the Toy Story franchise.

Find some camoflage clothing at a thrift store, or if you have some you don’t use anymore, then paint it green. Spray paint would likely work the best.

Then you can find either a green see through body suit with face covering, or you can simply paint your exposed skin green. But the body suit would work better, however they can be somewhat pricey or hard to find.  Never fear, paint will also work.

You can find broken NERF guns or check out thrift stores for toy guns and spray paint them green as well.  Usually you can find toy helmets or you can make one out of

Seven Dwarves

(This image was uncredited on Pinterest. Full credit to the original creators! You did a great job!)

Want to go as a group? How about the Seven Dwarves?

This one is pretty easy. Just find an oversized t-shirt in the bright color that corresponds with the dwarf you are dressed as.

Add two circles out of yellow felt for buttons by either safety pinning them on or hot gluing them on.

Add a black belt or tie a black scarf or fabric around your waist. Then attach a yellow, felt “belt buckle” with either hot glue, or safety pins. You could even tie it onto a belt you don’t want to ruin with matching embroidery floss or yarn.

For the bottoms, you can just wear some solid leggings in either the coordinating color to the dwarf you are representing or just use black. Most of us have those lying around now a days.

If your character has a beard you can make one out of white felt.

Just take a sheet of white felt and fold it in half.  Cut out the beard shape.

Add holes to the sides and tie on a string with either elastic or ribbon (long enough to hold in place or tie in place.)

You are good to go, or you could attach cotton balls, or strips of felt to give the beard dimension.

Add a stocking cap or you can make one.

Here is a DIY video on making a Santa Hat or Elf hat that will work for this costume as well!

Mike Wazowski From Monsters Inc.

(Image credit: CramPowell on Pinterest)

Find an oversized green t-shirt.

Then Cut A larger white circle from felt for the eye ball. Cut a smaller green or blue circle for the iris of the eye and cut an even smaller circle for the pupil part of the eye.  You can add a tiny circle for a glint in the eye.

Hot glue the circles together to form an eye and then attach to the front of the green shirt with hot glue or safety pins if you want to keep the shirt past Halloween.

You also need to add a mouth. So cut a half circle out of black felt and then cut several, same sized, ovals out of white felt. Cut those in half to create teeth. Hot glue the teeth into the mouth and then attach it to the shirt under the eyeball using the same method you attached the eyeball with.

You can also just make a closed mouth smile out of felt, think the Amazon logo.

Now accessorize with leggings, socks, a long sleeved green shirt underneath, or whatever else you might want to use. You can also make a green tutu out of tulle and pair it with a shirt if you like.

James P. Sullivan Monsters Inc.

(Image credit: Everyday Ellis)

Of course you can also do Sully. This would be a great friends or couples costume pairing as well.

There are a couple of ways you can do this one.  The easiest is to simply take a blue t-shirt and glue or safety pin on purple felt circles all over it. A hoodie would also work well because you can attach two felt horns to the hood.

Another way is to take felt and cut out face shapes like was done with the Mike Wazowski costume.

Here is a good example of that:

(Image credit: SimplyMadeFun.com)

Another thing you could do is take a baseball cap and add the Monsters Inc. logo to it and then cut two felt horns and attach them to the sides.

I love the extra details on this one with the sock. Another great idea to consider!

 

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There are a few ideas to get you started. I’m hoping to offer more in the next few days.

What do you think? Comment and let us know!