Clever DIY Halloween Costume Ideas from Crafty Pants

Author Shannon Whitt of Crafty Pants: Clever Costumes offers a step-by-step guide an oversized hooded sweatshirt to create easy, froggy and doggy Halloween costumes for kids and parents alike.

Outerwear pulls double duty in these Halloween costumes, keeping your trick-or-treater both warm and festive as they collect their candy and celebrate the holiday. Use a brown hoodie to create a bear or monkey outfit, and a yellow or gold-colored sweatshirt makes a great lion base. Cut-off sleeves multitask as paws for hands or feet.

Brooklyn based mom and author Shannon Whitt offers two ideas for easy, fun creature costumes using everyday household objects.

DIY Froggy Costume

You’ll Need:

• Oversized, green hooded sweatshirt.
• Fabric glue
• 2 small Greek yogurt tubs
• Black craft felt or construction paper
• Double-sided tape
• Scissors

Froggy Body

1. To make the frog, cut the sleeves from the sweatshirt and put them aside for the frog feet.
2. Put on the sweatshirt, pull on the hood, and draw it tight around your face. Mark two 4 and a ½-inch-long lines, positioned 1 inch from the center of the hood and 4 inches from the drawstring edge.
3. When the sweatshirt is off, make a cut along both 4½-inch-long lines.
4. Put fabric glue on two small Greek yogurt tubs.
5. Place the tubs behind the slits. Glue the bottom edge of each tub to the bottom edge of the slit. Let dry. Stretch the top of the slits up and around the tubs in an eyelid shape. Glue and hold in place until the fabric glue begins to dry.
6. Let eyeballs dry completely. For eyeball centers, cut out two black circles from felt or construction paper and glue them to the cups.

Froggy Feet

1. Cut down each leftover sleeve to a length a little longer than your foot, heel to toe, including the cuff. Lay each sleeve flat with the seam down. Cut three small triangles out of the wider end and tie the tips of the points together.
2. Cut a 4- to 5-inch-long slit in the seam, starting just above the cuff.
3. Put your foot through the cuff and then out the slit so that the webbed foot flops on top of your shoe. Stick a strip of double-sided tape to the top of each shoe to hold each webbed “foot” in place.

DIY Puppy Costume