One week from today those who celebrate the holiday will be out in their neighborhood (or a favorite spooky neighborhood) walking from door to door, ringing doorbells and shouting “Trick or Treat!” Kids will be excited and on sugar highs already, houses will be decorated, and children will be unrecognizable in donned costumes and alternative personas for one haunted evening of fun. 

 

Where does Chicago Textile Recycling fit in this post about Halloween festivity? In our pursuit of encouraging each of you to recycle textiles, we also want to provide eco-friendly ideas whenever you need to purchase a new outfit, even if it is one to embrace your inner witch. Or ghost. Or superhero.

 

Shopping Creatively: Resale Stores and Your Closet

Shop Resale Stores

Resale stores are a great place to shop for Halloween inspiration. Our local Goodwill not only resells previously worn costumes for kids and adults, they also set up spots in their aisles with costume ideas that can be found in the regular clothes’ sections of their stores. In these spots,  employees have pulled together items in the store to complete the look. 

 

For instance, one spot had the idea of “Scarecrow,” gave simple directions on what to buy to to create the scarecrow costume, and had already pulled flannel shirts and overalls under the sign to look through and purchase. Add a straw hat, a few pieces of hay and some scarecrow looking makeup, and you are ready for Halloween!

 

Over the last six years, I have only purchased new costumes once or twice for my children, choosing instead to pull ideas from pinterest or buy secondhand from kids’ consignment and resale stores.  By choosing to buy used, you are keeping perfectly good costumes out of the waste stream in landfills. Children’s costumes are the most prevalent option in resale stores, but there are adult costumes also, as well as ideas for pulling together costumes from what you already own or from the clothes’ racks of resale stores. An added bonus is that this option is always cheaper too!

 

Shop Your Closet

Your own closet is another great place to look for Halloween inspiration.  It doesn’t take much to pull off a witch. When hosting a Halloween party with roommates a decade ago, I pulled a black dress, some orange and black striped socks, black tights and black boots together, borrowed an orange autumnal scarf from a classmate, and was left with only a witch hat to buy, which I found secondhand. Voila!

 

As noted above, there are other costume ideas that could be pulled from an already filled closet. A scarecrow would be simple with a flannel shirt and overalls. A zombie equally easy to create with some tattered dark clothes, or old clothes you could tatter yourself. Frankenstein would need a solid t-shirt, sports jacket, and a pair of slacks. With a small dose of creativity, and possibly a little pinterest inspiration, you can easily pull off many Halloween looks in the comfort of your own home.

 

Costume Ideas

Spider

Last year my son went as a spider for Halloween. I really couldn’t find many good premade spider costumes on the internet, so decided to check out pinterest and make one myself.  I consider myself somewhat crafty but am definitely no sewing goddess, so this is not a hard one to make. It was simply a matter of looking for the pieces to make the whole. 

 

He wanted to be a brown wolf spider, or something similar based on a Halloween decoration I purchased from our local Goodwill.  Shopping around local thrift stores, I found a brown sweatshirt with an orange truck I was able to turn inside out, a pair of brown corduroy pants and a brown knitted hat.  At the nearby craft store, I purchased an 8 pack of medium sized googly eyes and some brown ribbon. I then purchased two pairs of brown socks and a pair of brown gloves at our local Dollar Tree.

 

Following a look I found on Pinterest, I filled the two pairs of socks with plastic grocery bags, sewed them closed and onto the sides of the sweatshirt, and then hot glued ribbon to connect his two long sleeved arms to two socks on either side, with his legs creating eight legs total for the spider.  A hot glue gun also helped with adhering the googly eyes to the front top of his knit hat, and he was an adorable spider that Halloween.

 

Farmer/Scarecrow

A farmer or scarecrow would be fairly similar in style. With a plaid flannel long-sleeved shirt, a pair of overalls and a straw hat, your basic look would be set. A pair of work boots could complete the look for a farmer, and some straw and makeup would turn you into a scarecrow.

 

 

Pirate

For a pirate, you will need a white shirt, black pants or cut offs, a red sash which could be an old t-shirt or pair of leggings and a sash or kerchief for your head. Or instead of a kerchief, a secondhand pirate hat or similar black hat would work well.  A pirate sword could also be picked up secondhand, and you can choose to complete the look with an eyepatch. A black piece of felt with ribbon could suffice, or you can attempt to find an inexpensive one at a costume shop. Lastly, you can always add details like  a parrot, or a vest made from an old shirt or sports coat.

 

 

Robot

If you have an excess of boxes lying around, and some dryer flex hose, a robot would be a fun and creative project to make for Halloween. Some paint is all you would need to add to make it your own.

 

 

Vampire

Do you already own a tuxedo? There is no better reason to pull it out of the depths of your closet than an evening of impersonating a vampire. Add a black cape made from an old sheet, or one found secondhand, some black hair spray (if your hair isn’t black), and the only new thing you really need is a pair of pointy teeth. I do not suggest buying those secondhand.

 

If you do not currently own a tux, a button down white shirt with black trousers would do the trick. And earn yourself a treat!

 

 

Many More Ideas

For inspiration, seek out your local resale store or type in “diy halloween costumes” on google or pinterest.  There are so many easy and creative costumes you can make from already owned textiles and items in your home, and if you are feeling absolutely zero creativity in the craftiness department, there are many, many costumes and costume ideas at resale stores that involve simply reusing someone else’s costume from last year.  Either way, you are doing your part in reducing waste, increasing the longevity of textiles, and recycling one person’s old costume (would be trash) into your new costume treasure.

 

Happy Halloween!