I made my kids' costumes whenever possible. Easier with girls than boys IMHO. The year my daughter was 4, she was an elephant. It started with an elephant nose I found in the Halloween section. She tried it on and thought it was hilarious to have this thing hanging off her face, sooo the beginning of the costume.

I bought a grey sweatsuit and grey socks. Painted pink toenails on the socks and put them over her shoes. Her hair was put up in two ponytails that were braided when wet. When dry, I fluffed them out and sprayed with pink hair spray for elephant ears.

The last house we went to thought she was just the cutest thing, and it was getting late, so they dumped the whole bowl of candy in her sack. They were happy to see that someone was still making costumes.

Nother one

My mom was the Halloween chairman for years at our elementary school . I was in junior high this year...too old to TOT but still wanted to participate. Volunteered to be a witch and walk around answering questions for people.

The carnival was huge, even by today's standards. There were two rooms for each grade, K-6 plus the library and cafeteria. Each room had its own game or theme. The big kids' playground had a cake walk and the little kids' playground was for those who were too tired or scared.

Anyway, back to the witch. Mom always had to improve on anything possible. She made this witch costume and put huge pockets in it. The pockets were lined with plastic bags. In one bag was cold spaghetti, another peeled grapes and the third was a prize. The kids would come up to me and guess which pocket had the eyeballs, which had the worms and which was the prize. They gave me a ticket and I let them...er...grope in my pockets.

Once in awhile, I would go into the teachers' break room (strange place for a student) and change around where everything was. There were bowls of ice to put the old stuff in and get fresh stuff from, so I didn't end up with a pocket of spoiling food!

The only thing she forgot was a place to put all of those tickets lol