Halloween Costumes and Fancy Dress - Awesome fun, but can be a nightmare in respect to expense or time. You can buy or hire to solve the time issue. But to solve the expense issue you can buying a cheap Halloween costume and improving it, also making it unique to you, or make your own.

To find the basic garment for your Halloween Costume, assuming you've decided what you want to look like, could be quite easy - maybe modify existing clothing, dresses, skirts, shirts, trousers, t-shirts etc. Other sources of material for your Halloween Fancy Dress may be old sheets, table covers, curtains, anything really that is either very cheap, maybe damaged or no longer used.

You may need to buy some garments or cloth items for your creation, the obvious place is the second hand and charity shops, you will find an amazing amount of useful goodies for very little cost, any you're helping charity too!! You may also find good accessories to embellish your outfit, old jewellery and the like.

If you're creating Childrens Halloween Costumes or making Halloween Fancy Dress for a party, perhaps get together with other mums or party goers, set some time aside to have some fun making the Fancy Dress Outfits together.

Some Halloween Costume ideas:

Pirate

Always a popular theme, you need baggy black or brown trousers or jeans, cut them below the knee and maybe give a roughened, almost torn edging.. For the top, a baggy white shirt, ideally cuffed up. Finish this with a waistcoat, easily made, to be worn over the shirt. Boots, gold hoop earrings, a sword, an eye patch, then a hat or bandana completes the outfit. This costume can be easily changed to a female pirate, short jagged skirt, boots and fishnets.

Vampire

Very simple, black trousers, white shirt, maybe a waistcoat, bow-tie or similar neck accessory, wax or gel your hair back, white face makeup, maybe blacken the eyes a little and a blood dribble on the chin. For fangs, it's probably best to buy some cheap ones, all sorts are available. Finish with black shoes.

Ghost

Possibly one of the oldest and easiest ghoulish Halloween costumes around. You just need a large white sheet that completely covers the person. Simply place over the person, with arms down and cut around the bottom, allowing a small gap to prevent dragging or risk of tripping. From there just add eyeholes, add a piece of white net on the inside of these eyeholes if you wish to cover a little. You could finish with fake chain made from paper, rolled into tubes and formed into links, painted or covered with aluminium foil. Maybe even use a different coloured fabric and sew or stick letters on the front to say BOO!!

Scarecrow

Very simple - find the right hat and some straw used for pet bedding and old clothes. The clothes need to be oversized, with baggy shirt, flannel or checked are ideal, and trousers, adding holes to look aged and maybe pop out some straw. If you can get some straw to come out of the sleeves and legs, be careful not to make it itchy or scratchy. Old overalls would work very well too. For the hands, either fingerless gloves or garden gloves and old shoes or boots, adding holes maybe for effect. Face paint would finish it nicely. Other accessories can include a fake crow, flowers etc

Tin Man

Following from Scarecrow, another great and simple Kids Halloween Costume would be the Tin Man from the wizard of Oz. Get some old boxes, cover with aluminium foil, silver paint or silver wrapping paper, silver face paint and a funnel on the head!!. Maybe get some gloves and glue card tubes, cut to shape and allowing movement, for tin man hands. Check online and look at the facial detail, just draw on some black lines at the mouth and chin.

Witch

This can be made numerous ways, tighter costumes with puffy or flowing skirts, simpler with darker clothing and a cape. The hat can be made from card, covering with fabric if you want that extra finish. Broomsticks, simply an old cane or brush stave with a pile of straw ties to the end. Although not a must, face paint does add great effect to a witch outfit, for me the most impressive is the all green face, like the witch from the Wizard of Oz movie. A crooked nose is good, you maybe better buying this as you can get them very cheaply. For a younger witch, either use black tights or you can buy coloured striped tights quite cheaply, maybe for a teen or adult witch, with a sexier look, use a shorter skirt rather than flowing, fishnets and boots.

Black Cat

Again, very easy, ideally use some sort of old cat suit if possible, or make one from black fabric. Alternatives include just tight black shirt and trousers. From there, you just need a tail, use cloth covered hose or similar, avoid hard wire in case of harming people, you could also make a longer cloth tail, that can be carried and swung around. Facially, there are many cat styles you can create, all over colours, just whiskers, eye patches etc. Ears can be made by making cloth or card ears and attaching to an old headband or just some elastic.