My three favorite events surrounding Halloween are…
- Dressing up in costumes
- Decorating or carving pumpkins
- Trick-or-treating if most of the candy is some form of chocolate : )
With about three weeks remaining before the 31st, the pressure is on to find the perfect costume. I hope these cool Halloween costumes around the world, accompanied with “how to” videos, relieve some of that pressure.
In our family we don’t typically spend a lot of money buying Halloween costumes. My sister had a knack for digging through my mom’s old clothes in the basement. She always uncovered vintage treasures and transformed them into prize winning costumes.
I don’t have that ability, so to help my kids come up with costume ideas, I often look through catalogs or search online. This year I thought it would be fun to search for some costume ideas that represent other countries and cultures to share with you.
I found some great links and youtube video tutorials that feature five inexpensive “around the world” themed costumes. I hope these ideas inspire you to create contest winning costumes of your own!
Kimono Costume Ideas
This first link shows you how to make a beautiful and simple Japanese kimono costume over at the online magazine called Parents. It only takes six items to make this kimono costume!
I also found this kimono video tutorial which involves some simple sewing. It is meant to be worn as a fashion cardigan, but could easily be used for a costume.
Flamenco Dancer Costume Ideas
I lived in Spain for three years and absolutely LOVE España. Unfortunately, many of the flamenco costume video tutorials I looked at weren’t all that appropriate. I did, however, find this darling fiesta dress over at Homemade By Jill that would be absolutely adorable for a little girl.
Read my flamenco clothespin doll post to teach your kids about flamenco. They can also watch this video to see Spanish children dancing flamenco style in Spain.
Greek Goddess Video Tutorial
I really like the tips and tricks in this tutorial ranging from hair accessories to multiple DIY toga styles.
Cleopatra Costume Video Tutorial
This mom “wowed” me with the way she applied her daughter’s makeup to transform her into the Queen of the Nile!
Gladiator Costume Video Tutorial
You can learn how to make a complete gladiator costume by watching the 5 minute video below. Or read how this crafty mom turns messy fun into a cardboard Roman centurion costume over at Filth Wizardry.
These five
These are great ideas! I am not a big fan of dressing up, but I love the idea of the Kimono because it seems so easy to pull off. Thanks for sharing 🙂
Thanks Samantha. I like the simplicity of the kimono too. Some of these costumes would also be great if kids are doing country reports & would like to dress to represent their country.
This is SO amazing! I love the creative options!!! I am going to show these to my kids! 🙂
Cathy
Thanks Cathy! I hope your kids like these ideas.
These costumes are so cute and I love the Goddess one and we used to dig through items in our home and make our own Costumes as well even though my parents would purchase us costumes but it wasn’t near as much fun as making our own.
There certainly is a sense of achievement in making your own costume. My daughter is making herself a candy corn costume this year. She is using an old crayon costume and covered it with duck tape in a candy corn pattern. So cute!
An interesting angle to Halloween! Thank you for sharing with Mom’s Library, I’ll be featuring you this week at Castle View Academy. Have a great week.
Crystal, thanks so much for the feature. My daughter chose to be Hera for Halloween and followed the Greek goddess tutorial. Her costume was beautiful!