Rhiannon changed her mind about her Halloween costume at the last minute. We're on a budget, so I can't afford to be too extravagant with costumes. Does anyone have any ideas that won't make an 11 year-old girl roll her eyes? At this point, I'm thinking of grabbing up pieces from old costumes and sending her as undecided.

My kids have pulled that "undecided" trick many times! The easiest thing to do is just grab any old unmatched oversized clothing from various closets or drawers in your house and make a hobo or clown costume. A little face paint completes the look, and you can make as many layers as you want if it's cold where you live.
Other things I've used at the last minute is a "western" type look (jeans, a plaid shirt, and a cowboy hat) a sports fan (just what you'd wear to your favorite team's game, complete with face paint and a sign), a harried housewife (jammies, robe, curlers in hair, cold cream on face)...Good luck!

I'm thinking of the housewife look too. We thought about getting her a green bathrobe and a towel and making her Arthut Dent from Hitchhiker's Guide as well. I always enjoyed wearing my jammies to school on Halloween.

Yep, there are loads of costumes you can put together without buying a thing!

How about a psychotic killer? They look like everyone else.
Sorry, I couldn't help but dredge that old one up.
Seriously now, I remember laughing out loud when someone came to my door with a heavily made up face, a plastic knife and a box of cereal. He said he was a cereal killer, and kept stabbing the Rice Crispies!

My daughter went to a Thrift shop and found a skirt and shawl in brown with white lace decorations. She also picked up a brown shirt and is sewing purple pom poms on them.
She's going to the dance as the Gingerbread Girl (not the gumdrop buttons!).

I remember a Halloween party when this guy showed up with jeans on, a long black cane/stick which he shuffled around in front of him constantly as he went, dark sunglasses and the day of his birth (m/d/y) written on his white t-shirt with black magic marker. We were stumped! What was he? Hmmm. 'A Blind Date', of course. The wiseacre ...

Going as half and half works well - paint half the face white, the other black, wear a black tee shirt and sweats, and cut a white tee shirt in half, and baste it over half of the black one. (Either the same side as the white half of the face, or opposite, if you want a checkerboard effect.) You can baste half a white pair of sweats, or a white sheet (for a skirt effect) on the bottom if you want, but that can get expensive. Colour the hair with that spray colour, too, if you like.

Wrap her in tin foil, voila!, leftovers!

I love the Arthur Dent idea, fabulous.

I love the leftovers idea! We thought about wrapping her in two sided tape, rolling her on the lawn and calling her a Chia Pet. Talk about the eye roll to end all eye rolls. She was nowhere near as amused by the idea as I was.

I've got yards and yards of off white unbleached domestic, some of which I plan to make into a rainbow trout costume for a small neighbor. Having lots of white fabric on hand gives you a lot of room for creativity -specially if you're able to spraypaint or brush stroke your designs
on.

One year, I designed another neighbor's costume, and he went to a dance as a big roll of Aluminum foil. We even painted the Reynolds logo up the side of the box. This year, looks like my teenager will be going as the Fairy In Charge of Annoying Life Events.
I have no idea as to what that might even look like...

One of the cleverest costumes I ever saw was a friend who came to one of our Halloween parties as a bunch of grapes. All he did was blow up a load of green balloons and pin them to his clothing.

Wrap her in tin foil, voila!, leftovers!

This is a great idea!
My Sister one yr got my Mom to fashion out of Chicken wire and Burlap Beer Bottles and they wore tin foil hats as the caps.
They won First prize and the rep for the beer company wanted to buy the costumes but they wouldn't sell them.
They looked great.
All the costumes mentioned on here are very inventive and would be a hit at any party.
Have Fun and Stay safe.
PF

I hate Hallowee'en , I should mention that first.
However... this site looks good in that it is about costumes you can make at home for little or nothing. Hallowe'en costumes

When I was 11-ish, I didn't want to dress up as anything embarassing, I could pull off leftovers or a chia pet at my age now, but back then I probably would've rolled my eyes too. When I was 11 I dressed up as a tennis player. A couple of sweat bands, a white skirt and white shirt (or pink or yellow if you want to go that route), a tennis raquet. The next year I went a step further and was a "dead tennis player". My mom painted on a grayish, greenish "dead" face, cut the strings out of the raquet and put it around my neck to make it look like my tennis opponent had broken it over my head.

A cheerleader always works too. Get a matching outfit, glue on or temporarily sew the school letters onto the shirt, get or make some pompoms, tie the hair up in pigtails.

A skunk... dress her up all in black, if her hair isn't already dark, you could spray it black with that halloween washable stuff and leave a patch to spray white, then sew or glue a white streak of fabric down her back. Get some black and white furry stuff to glue to her butt for visual effect.

The possibilities are endless.

What was Rhiannon's original costume? Can it be salvaged at all to make something else out of it?

She was going to be Klaus from A Series of Unfortunate Events. Two of her friens were going as Violet and Sunny,but one changed her mind. So, we can't salvage the costume becuase it was regular khaki pants and a sweater. It's going to be cold this weekend, so I'm thinking of something that will keep her warm. We may have settled on a pirate using clothes left over from our days of going to the Ren Faire, but I don't think she'll be warm enough.

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our days of going to the Ren Faire

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A REN Fair?? Huh? What is that? You mean I have achieved fame in Pennsylvania?? Do tell?

Ren, this Link may be of some help.



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Agnes (JTJ)

Oh Thanks very much! What a let down...
Actually it all looks like fun.

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A skunk... dress her up all in black, if her hair isn't already dark, you could spray it black with that halloween washable stuff and leave a patch to spray white, then sew or glue a white streak of fabric down her back. Get some black and white furry stuff to glue to her butt for visual effect.

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Sniff...I would be honoured...sniff...if she dressed up like me!

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REN Fair?? Huh? What is that? You mean I have achieved fame in Pennsylvania?? Do tell?

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Next summer, I will host the first annual REN Fair in my backyard just for you. We'll blow up that picture you use in your avatar and set a place at the picnic table in your honor.

Awwww!! I am utterly touched.

A couple years I went as a deranged Buffalo Bills fan - I just put on all the Bills stuff we had.

And a couple other years I went as garbage. I put on a garbage bag with holes for my arms and a head then we taped the bags that the candy my parents were handing out all on the bag...

It was usually too cold to wear my old dance costumes to go trick-or treating, but I would wear them to school and go as a dancer.

All this sounds like is fancy dress, so in that case I once went to a party dressed as the Financial Times newspaper. I tacked pages of newspaper to a long dress covering it completely.

Yes, Sue, all it is is fancy dress. The differences, for Hallowe'en, are that a child must be able to wear the costume to several parties (and be able to get it on more or less correctly without help, or with the help of friends, for the school party), must be *wearable* enough that walking for miles, and climbing up front steps, is possible, and that (in Cananda at least) it can be worn over lots of warm clothes.

My daughter (13) painted her face up like Gene Simmons of Kiss, and sprayed her hair black. She wore a black t shirt and black jeans, and was very statisfied with herself. Total cost, $3.50 at the dollar store, and she says that everyone at the party she was at last night loved her costume. I liked it too, as all I had to do was draw the outline of the design on her face in eyebrow pencil, she could fill it in herself.