It’s only 4 days until Halloween! You’ve finished your Last Minute Halloween Decorations, but now you need costumes! The good news is that kids have exceptional imaginations, so they don’t need anything too fancy. There are plenty of DIY costumes that don’t take much work- or much money- to pull together. This afternoon my kids and I tried out a couple- and they literally took minutes to put together. Wanna see what we came up with? Here are EIGHT LAST MINUTE HALLOWEEN COSTUMES!!! (Plus check out the end for more ideas!)

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Supplies:

• three sheets of printer paper (depending on the size of your child’s head)
• scotch tape
• apron
• eye-liner
• bowl and whisk
• white dress shirt
• black shoes
• black pants (We actually used black jeans)

Instructions:

1. Get your child to put on the clothes and apron while you tape the longest sides of the white paper together, but don’t tape it into a cylinder yet.
2. Wrap the paper around your child’s head and tape it where it fits.
3. Draw a curly mustache with eyeliner.
4. Hand them the bowl and whisk and you’re done your Last-Minute Chef Costume!

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Supplies:

• Black pants, shirt, tights and shoes.
• Eyeliner
• For the ears you’ll need black construction paper or card stock, hair clips and scissors. Check out DIY Cat Costume Ears for instructions and images of the supplies.

Instructions:

1. Get your child to put on the shirt, pants and shoes.
2. Inside-out one leg of the tights and shove it into the other leg to make one thick leg.
3. Stuff the open end of the tights down the back of the pants to be the tail.
4. Make the ears according to the instructions on DIY Cat Costume Ears. Clip into hair (hair can be up or down).
5. Draw whiskers and nose on with the eyeliner and you’re done your Last-Minute Cat Costume!

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Supplies:

• Pants you don’t care about (we used pants that were a few sizes too big and used a  a ragged belt to hold them up)
• White Dress Shirt
• Bandanna
• Eye Patch (If you have time you can make one out of a bit of felt and fabric elastic, I’ve also found them at the dollar store)
• 2 Daddy- or Mummy-sized belts.
• Plastic swords and/or pistols
• “Parrot” (ours is a cardinal) *optional
• Eye-Liner would make a nice scruffy beard *optional

Instructions:

1. Take the pants and cut them off at about the shin. These cuts should be obviously ragged and crooked.
2. Put on the pants.
3. Put on the shirt. Leave lots of top and bottom buttons undone. Roll up the sleeves.
4. Do up the belts and put them over your child’s head and one shoulder so they cross at the chest.
5. Put the weapons in the belts where the belts fastens
6. Put the bandanna on low over the eyes. Then put on the eye patch.
7. Put the “parrot” in the breast pocket, or between the front buttons. What do you think of your Last-Minute Pirate Costume?

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(How cute is this!? I can’t even…)

Supplies:

1. House Coat
2. Sandals
3. Hand towel (or bigger towel as appropriate)
4. Some kind of band, tie to ribbon to secure the head piece
5. Stuffed sheep

Instructions:

1. Put on sandals and housecoat (our housecoat was Winnie the Pooh, so we turned it inside out so it wouldn’t be quite as obvious).
2. Place towel on head so it drapes over the front to the eyebrows.
3. Put the band around it to secure it in place.
4. Hold sheep. This is the cutest little Last-Minute Shepherd Costume!

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Supplies:

• Camouflage (How many little boys don’t have camo?)
• Face Paint (or mud, lol)
• Toy rifles or other weapons *optional

Instructions:

1. Put on camo
2. Put on face paint
3. Arm yourself (You can’t get much quicker or easier than this Last-Minute Hunter/Soldier Costume!)

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Supplies:

• Black shirt, pants and shoes
• Additional black long -sleeved shirt for the mask.
• We tied on a Ninja Headband that we had for our Ninja Party, but that’s not necessary.
• Optional: Try making our Nunchucks! Ours were destroyed post-Ninja Party, and we didn’t have time to make more because we were trying to do this with no prep. But they’re really not difficult or time consuming.

Instructions:

1. Put on the pants, shirt and shoes.
2. Tie the mask with instructions from Lemon Squeezy Home.
3. Grab your NUNCHUKS for your complete Last-Minute Ninja Costume!

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Okay, I think this is just hilarious. But my daughter loved it and said she looked just like a real Mom, “because real Moms have messy hair, right Mum?” Thanks, Honey.

Supplies

• Your daughter’s trendiest outfit
• Diaper bag
• Baby doll (we have a toy baby carrier, so we used that too)
• Black eye shadow
• Hair elastic

Instructions:

1. Get your daughter to put on the clothes you chose (I don’t know about you, but my 3-year-old picks the craziest combinations!).
2. Use your fingers to pull her hair back into a messy bun.
3. Put a little black eye shadow under her eyes so she looks sleep deprived.
4. *Optional: We didn’t do this because my daughter was wearing white, but it might be fun to dribble some spit-up (cornstarch mixed with water should do the trick) down the front of her shirt or over her shoulder.
5. Give her the baby and the diaper bag and she’s ready with her Last-Minute Mom Costume!

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Supplies:

• Black pants and shoes, white dress shirt
• Eye liner
• Hair Gel
• Cape: Garbage bag, red card stock, ribbon or string and a stapler

Instructions:

1. Make the cape: Cut one side and the bottom of the garbage bag so it is single thickness. Lay it flat. Fold the card-stock, length-wise, one inch from the edge. This will fold over the staples to protect the skin on your child’s neck (I’m sure there’s a vampire joke in there somewhere). Staple the bottom corners of the card stock on to the bottom corners of the garbage bag . Spread the garbage bag and the ribbon out evenly along the rest of the card stock and staple every couple of inches. Fold up the one-inch edge.
2. Get your child to put on the shirt, pants and shoes. Tuck the shirt in so he looks debonair.
3. Tie the cape around the neck, underneath the collar. (It probably goes without saying to be careful when tying anything around a child’s neck. Be sure your child isn’t too young, careless or rambunctious for this. Their safety is more important than a complete costume!) If you don’t care too much about the shirt they’re wearing you could always staple the cape to the shirt- then you wouldn’t need to tie anything around their neck. I’d be grateful for any other ideas in the comments!
4. Use the eye liner to draw a twirly mustache to complete this Last-Minute Vampire Costume.

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I hope you found these ideas helpful. You could also check out our Flying Squirrel Costume. Maybe you found this post inspiring- now you feel empowered to go through your kids play clothes to see what you can come up with. Maybe they have the supplies for:

• Ghost

• Athelete

• Ballerina

• Lumberjack

• Flapper

• Zombie

• Old man or woman

• Farmer

• Princess

Please share with me what Last Minute Halloween Costumes you came up with! I’d also like to know which of my ideas you liked the best! Happy Halloween!