Inexpensive Homemade Costume Ideas

Invisible

Wrap gauze around your face. Leave space to open your mouth so you can drink, eat, and most importantly, breathe. Put on a pair of sunglasses and a hat. Choose any number of outfits from your closet. Dress up in formal wear or simply put on a track suit. Cover your hands and any other exposed skin with gauze. Just be sure not to limit your range of motion too much, so you can still handle a plate or drive a car if needed.

If you own a replica sports jersey, put it on and paint your face in the team's colors. But it doesn't have to be a professional sports team. Break out an old high school jersey and alter it if it doesn't fit. Use colored yarn to make long hair and tape it to the inside of a hat in the team's colors. Or forgo the shirt and paint the team's name on your stomach or back.

Borrow your wife's makeup and cheap jewelry. While her dress might not fit, her bikini top might. Just make sure she's okay with parting with it in case you stretch it out of shape. Make a hula skirt with natural or synthetic green raffia. Girls can don their boyfriends' or brothers' shirt and ties. Draw facial hair using an eyeliner pencil. Just be careful when putting on another gender's shoes, especially men, who might not have ever worn heels.

Turn yourself into a robot by wrapping your arms and legs in tinfoil. Take a large box and cut holes for your arms, neck and legs. Paint it silver or wrap it in tinfoil. Do the same with old shin guards. For your head, either paint your face silver or create a mask. You could unscrew the face mask off an old football helmet. To make the costume interactive, create doors for a little box. Fill it with wires.

Cut a hole the size of your face in a stiff rectangle piece of cardboard. Paint it silver to make the "tray." Cut gingerbread cookie shapes out of brown construction paper. Glue them around the "tray." Make one larger one and glue it under the face hole. Put your head in through the hole. Fasten the tray using straps or duct tape to your body. Put on an oven mitt on one hand, and hold a spatula in the other hand.

Create a windy day effect by styling your hair back. Use a heavy amount of hairspray to keep it in place. Use armature wire and stick it in a necktie to make it look like it's being blown back. Or use the wire in a cape or dress to give off the same effect. Fasten balls of newspaper or soda cans to the front of your shirt to make it look like trash has blown into you.