Top 5 Simplest DIY Halloween Costumes

While kids are trick-or-treating, their parents are at adult parties wearing DIY Halloween costumes or paid-for costumes ranging from silly to sleazy—and everything in between. Your costume needs to last all night, but who wants to break the bank on something you’re only going to wear once? The easiest DIYs can be modified for kids and grownups alike.

Here are the top five simplest DIY Halloween costumes that you can do yourself:

5. Mummy

One of the most popular DIY Halloween costumes used during the Halloween period is the mummy. Easy, enduring and scary as an undead pharaoh, the mummy will simply never go out of style.

Pulling off this popular Halloween costume by yourself costs nothing at all, as the materials needed to create a mummy costume for Halloween can easily be found around your house or you can purchase some from the thrift store.

You’ll need cheesecloth, floral moss, a white shirt and white tights. Throw on the shirt and tights, then wrap the cheesecloth around the body with the moss randomly tucked in.

Also, another simple way to create a mummy Halloween costume, as offered by Wikihow, is to first form a bandage by tying multiple strips of cloth together, preferably four to five. After putting on a white base outfit, wrap the bandage around the legs, then work it up on your body.

Then when you get to the upper side of your body, wrap your hands first and work back towards your shoulder. Use any leftover bandages to cover your face.

Want to really get that fresh-out-of-the-tomb look? Rub some dirt or tea on the cheesecloth the day before. Grave robbers, beware.

4. Little Lamb

This is one of the most popular DIY Halloween costumes made for kids.  The “fleece” is wool batting, gathered and sewn to a sleeveless leotard, which is worn over a long-sleeved shirt and leggings.

This Halloween costume is made for kids within the ages of 3-8, and here is how to create one of the cutest and popular DIY Halloween costumes this season:

Using a hot-glue gun, fasten cotton balls or white pom-poms—about 500 should do—to the body portion of a bodysuit or leotard. Cut off the arms and legs.

Cut ear shapes out of white and black felt, glue them to a black hat, then cover the hat with pom-poms or cotton balls. Put on black tights and a black long-sleeve shirt. (The kid in the picture is rocking white sleeves and tights, so it’s whatever you prefer or have on hand.)

Slip the pom-pom-covered body suit on over that, and then do likewise with the hat. You are officially the eternal symbol of innocence and sacrifice.

3. No-Sew Scarecrow

The age-old scarecrow outfit just got even easier.

This is one of the most popular DIY Halloween costumes, and this one requires no sewing and saves you all the trouble of damaging the flannel shirt.

For this costume, here are the basic necessities, according to the The Night Owl. You’ll need a straw hat, straw-colored yarn, burlap and burlap ribbon, some adhesive and glue (preferably hot glue).

Then you will also need some scissors, face paints, sticks and some materials for patching. Cut scraps of fabric into squares; these will be the busting-out-of-his-skin scarecrow’s patches. Take a hot-glue gun and fasten raffia behind the patches to look like straw poking out of holes.

Meanwhile, for the straw hat, which is the crowning glory of the whole dress-up, The Night Owl recommends that you get a foam adventure hat, then trace and cut some inches around the hat on your burlap fabric, after which you glue it down around the brim of the hat.

However, if you don’t have many materials on your hands, Wikihow recommends using a  paper grocery bag.

In this case, put a large brown paper bag on the head of the person you are making it for to shape the hat and create pleats and creases.

After this, you decorate the hat by cutting small squares from your excess paper, then glue these to the hat wherever you please and use markers to draw stitches around their edges to transform them into patches.

And if you really want to up the ante, get a cheap artificial bird and fasten it to the hat or to the costume itself.

2. Wacky Meteorologist

Get some blue and silver construction paper, scissors, glue, fishing line, a yellow raincoat and hat and a small bubble umbrella. Take the construction paper and cut out matching pairs of raindrop and lightning bolt shapes.
Cut about a foot of fishing line for each pair.

Glue one end of the line sandwiched between a pair of matching shapes, and attach the other end to the spokes on the umbrella. Do this for each pair of shapes, throw on the slicker and the hat, and it’s going to rain candy at every house.

1. Ghost

The easiest Halloween costume in history also just might be the spookiest: the old standby, the go-to, the ghost. The ghost costume requires three things: a white sheet, a marker and scissors. The process is so simple it’s scary. You take the sheet and put it over the ghost-to-be’s head.

Locate the wearer’s eyes and mark the spots with the marker. Take the scissors and cut two circles where the dots are, then trim the bottom of the sheet so it appears to float just above the floor. Poof. You’re a ghost. Feeling ambitious? Sew or glue some black lace behind the eye holes to create a screen.