My Top 3 Creative, Favorite (EASY) Homemade Halloween Costumes ever! (So far.)

Princess Leia Costume, Eggs and Bacon, Swiffer and Dirt…

One of the very important issues we didn’t discuss as a couple before marriage was the fact that my husband was marrying into a “costume” family.

He’s from a very non-costume family. 

It was very hard to get along when Halloween came around and I’d come up with costume ideas, I mean seriously, NO DRESSING UP? NO NO NO NO, that won’t work. Not at all! Eventually he’d break, and grudgingly, he’s worn the costumes I’ve drummed up. We’ve been the Super Hero Family, Harry Potter and Hermione, we’ve been the Star Wars couple, when I was pregnant we were eggs and bacon, last year, he was a Swiffer and I was mud.

Pretty good for a non-costume guy. (I think he secretly likes the attention because honestly, Swiffer stole the show at our town’s Main Street Halloween last year!)

So last night when I announced to him what our costumes would be this year, I was impressed that he didn’t even flinch or give me the look! I questioned him (this is a huge turn of events, huge!) as to why he didn’t even flinch and why he was suddenly ok with dressing up and his response was simple:

“You wore me down,” he said.

Sweet. My job here is done.

We’re officially a costume family.

I’m not going to tell you our costume for this year yet (it is currently under construction) but I will share with you some very simple costumes that I have subjected my husband to over the past few years. Since it’s review day, I’m going to review my homemade costumes of Halloweens past!

The Eggs and Bacon Costume

We’ll start first with Eggs and Bacon, which was so fun and super easy (and cheap!) and was an amazing pregnant costume. I was about 1,000 months pregnant (due in a couple weeks) at Halloween time so it was perfect.

Here is what I did:

I took about 6 yards of white felt, cut it out sort of irregularly around the edges, cut a large hole in the middle of the front for the yolk to poke out, and then I glued the edges with a hot glue gun leaving holes for the arms, neck and legs, and that was the egg white.

For the yolk, I measured my girth and got yellow spandex stretch fabric from the fabric store, cut it to fit around my midsection, then glued on velcro to fasten it in the back. I allowed my giant stomach to protrude from the hole I cut in the felt. I used felt because it is not that floppy, in fact it was pretty stiff and held up pretty well!

For the bacon, this was so simple. I bought a large roll of thin foam from the fabric/craft store.

I unrolled the foam and cut it into one big long 4 foot strip. Then, I cut that piece in half, lengthwise so that I ended up with two long rectangles, about 4 feet long.

I used red, brown and black spray paint, went in the back yard and sprayed it to look like bacon: black around the edges, a red line down the middle, some red around the edges, and then I made it “crispy” with the brown around the middle and edges. Then I attached the two pieces of bacon by leaving about 6-8 inches of string so the string would drape around my husband’s neck and the bacon strips would hang down on either side.

He wore all black so the bacon would stand out. Voila!

The Han Solo and Princess Leia Costume

This one literally came together magically. I can’t even describe to you how I lucked out on this one but now you can learn from me so that’s exciting! I could find a Princess Leia costume NO WHERE. I easily found Han Solo in a bag at the costume store (I recommend buying that one) but Princess Leia? I could only find her hair buns. And also I have blonde hair.

So what was a girl to do????

I bought a Dorothy wig with the braids that was the same color as the buns and I cut the braids off and tucked the nubbins underneath the wig. I put the Dorothy wig on and put the buns over it, and voila! I’ve got Princess Leia hair! But her costume was going to be tricky! (I was NOT being “Gold Bikini Leia” either.)

I found a Gossamer Ghost costume that came with a plain white dress with long arms and a long white cape with hood. I already had a silver belt, so I belted it and I wore white shoes. I was going to be “Obi Wan Kenobi, You’re My Only Hope” Leia!” Yes!!!

The finished product:

The Swiffer and Dirt Costume.

This was one of my favorite costumes of all time. I loved those Swiffer commercials so much last year when they came out and I had my choice of being dirt, mud, or dust. I finally settled on mud (although everyone just called me “dirt.”)

The Swiffer was surprisingly simple to make once I figured it out.

I took one big piece of thick green cardboard poster board in the poster board section, (I think it was actually supposed to be a science project display board) and one large white cardboard poster board (same section near the science project display boards) and fastened them together using green duct tape so that the white would be the front and the green would be the back.

Then I printed out Swiffer logos and cut them out and glued them onto the board where the logos would go on the actual Swiffer. Then I took a HUGE piece of stiff felt, I think I had gotten 2 yards of it. This was going to be the FRONT of his costume. (If I could ever get it on.)

My husband must REALLY LOVE ME.

So the felt had to fit over him, and also wrap around the green poster board and gather into the 4 holes I cut in an “X” on the back. (Think of how you’d put an actual Swiffer pad on a Swiffer.)

I measured where his arms would be comfortable and cut holes for his arms. (He wore a white turtle neck.)

I bought a mop from the dollar store just to have the handle of it so I detached it from the mop head and then I stuck it into a hole in the green poster board (stick it sort of between the green and white poster board) and fastened it with the green duct tape.

Make sure not to pull the felt TOO TIGHT. Because you can see *ahem* everything if you do. Keep it just a little loose.

Then mine. I was going to be Mud and I wanted it to be like this:

So I found this brown fabric at the fabric store, it was a very odd wrinkled texture and it felt like the cloth version of suede only not suede. It was totally luck of the draw, I combed the fabric store and found this one on discount. I bought a couple yards, enough to make a dress.

I still don’t actually know how I did this. But I folded it in half and cut it out in the shape of a long sleeved dress, sort of A lined and really big with a neck hole on top. I’d stick my head through the neck hole, see how everything seemed to fit and then I’d shave off a little more fabric. Then I glued the two arm pieces (front and back) together with fabric glue along the sides. It was all trial and error. I wish I could tell you how I did it specifically and for this I am not much help. I just kept cutting, really until it fit.

And then I took the scraps and stapled it around my purse, I already had brown shoes and then I bought big chunky bronze earrings to go with it!

This was the perfect costume grenade, as my husband would walk by and I would hear people yell, “Look at the Swiffer!” and then a couple seconds later hear, “LOOK! IT’S DIRT!” It was hysterical, we were definitely a talked about costume.

Mud sticks to Swiffer!

And so that’s that!

My three favorite homemade (ish) Halloween costumes so far! We have a Halloween party on Saturday so you will see me here finishing up our costumes and I of course will be on Instagram and Facebook with the finished product (it’s a surprise!)

What has been your favorite costume that you’ve ever dressed up as? If you posted about it, please share in the comments! 

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