No-Sew Halloween Costume Ideas

When Halloween rolls around, you don’t have to be a seamstress to make great costumes for your kids. When coming up with ideas, start by looking at pictures of Halloween costumes online and seek out ways to simplify! Poster boards, sheets of stiff felt, and plain tee shirts or sweatshirts all work well as base materials for costumes. With some imagination and a trip to the craft store, anyone can put together common items to form a great no-sew Halloween costume.

Here are three simple no-sew Halloween costume ideas to get you started:

Playing Card

For a quick and easy costume, try a life-size playing card a la Alice in Wonderland. Use a hole punch and string to attach two white poster boards together (at the narrow ends). Attach the strings at a distance that will sit comfortably across your child’s shoulders in a classic sandwich board fashion.

Next, draw the design of a playing card on the poster boards using red or black markers. (Sketch the design in pencil first to avoid making mistakes!) To complete the look, have your child dress in a red or black hooded sweatshirt and sweatpants before donning the playing card costume.

Little Ladybug

Turn your child into a little ladybug with a quick trip to a craft store. To make the distinctive ladybug wings, start by cutting a large oval out of stiff red felt. Glue four to six black circles on the red oval in parallel lines to be the spots on the ladybug wings, and cut the oval in half straight down the center to form two wings. Next, overlap the tops of the wings so that there is a V-shaped part at the bottom, like a ladybug just starting to open its wings, and glue them in place.

Punch two holes side-by-side across the top of the wings and run a long black string through them with both ends coming through the back side of the wings. Have your child dress all in black and tie the wings on her by bringing the attached strings over her shoulders, criss-crossing them over her chest, and tying them around her back. Complete the look by adding pipe cleaner antennae to a plastic headband.

Scarecrow

All you need for this seasonal harvest-look is a long-sleeved plaid shirt, old jeans, and some hay-colored raffia ribbon. Cut long strips of raffia ribbon, gather several strips together and tie a knot at the center of the bundle to form bunches with uneven ends. Safety pin the “hay” clumps inside the shirt’s collar, cuffs and in between some of the front buttons, so the ragged ends hang out.

To add more to the look, glue (or safety pin) squares of fabric to the jeans to look like patches, and add a hat with more hay-colored raffia bunches peeking out from under the brim. You can also add some make-up touches like stitch lines down the center of your child’s face or round circles of brightly colored blush.