Last October I promised my niece a proper Halloween costume and, being me, I refused to buy one off the rack. What followed was three weekends at my kitchen table in Munich, a floor dusted with felt scraps, and a very patient six-year-old who kept changing her mind between a fox and a superhero. By the end of it I had made five costumes out of fabric I mostly already owned, spent about €25 in total, and learned which ideas actually survive a whole evening of running around and which ones fall apart before the first doorbell rings. These ten are the ones I would happily make again, written up the way I made them — with the shortcuts, the mistakes, and the bits that matter when a small person is wearing your handiwork for hours.
1. Animal-Themed Costumes
An animal costume is where I always tell people to start, because the base is just clothes your child already owns. I used a plain grey sweatshirt and leggings from the drawer, then cut ears from a sheet of felt I bought for €1.50 at the craft shop near Marienplatz. The ears went onto a cheap headband with hot glue, and I stitched a simple tail — a long tube of the same felt, stuffed with a bit of old tights — onto the back of the sweatshirt with three big stitches so it could come off again. The whiskers were the fun part: a washable face crayon, three quick strokes on each cheek, done in about two minutes while she wriggled in front of the mirror. My one mistake was gluing the ears too far forward on the headband the first time, so they flopped over her forehead; moving them a centimetre back fixed it completely. Comfort matters more than accuracy here — if the tail is too heavy or the ears slip, your child will take it all off within half an hour, so test-drive the whole thing around the flat before the big night.
2. Superhero Costumes
The superhero cape is the single best return on effort of any costume I have ever made. I bought a metre of red fleece for about €4, cut it into a rectangle, and rounded the two bottom corners so it would not catch on chair legs. Instead of sewing it to a shirt, I sewed two small strips of Velcro onto the top corners and the matching pieces onto an old T-shirt, which meant the cape could come off at dinner and go straight back on for trick-or-treating. The chest emblem was a star cut from gold felt, glued on with fabric glue and left to dry overnight — do not rush this, because fabric glue that is only half dry will peel the first time the shirt bends. For the mask I traced a simple shape onto felt, cut eye holes slightly wider than I thought necessary, and threaded elastic through punched holes at the sides. My niece invented her own hero on the spot, complete with a name and a power involving talking to pigeons, and honestly that is the whole point: a cape and a mask are a blank canvas, and the child does the rest.
3. Fairy and Princess Costumes
Tulle looks intimidating in the shop, all puffy rolls and sparkle, but a tutu is really just a lot of knots. I bought two rolls of pink tulle for about €3 each and cut them into strips roughly 45 centimetres long, then tied them one by one around a wide elastic waistband, pushing the knots close together until the skirt looked full. The wings were the part I worried about most, and in the end they were the easiest: I bent a wire coat hanger into two loops, covered them with a stretched piece of old white tights, and glued a few sequins on top. Elastic straps through the middle let her wear them like a little backpack. One warning from experience: glitter gets everywhere, and I mean everywhere — my kitchen floor sparkled for a week. Use it sparingly, or better yet, use sequins and shiny ribbon instead and save yourself the hoovering.
4. Monster Costumes
Monsters are wonderfully forgiving, because nothing has to look neat — the messier, the better. I started with an old green sweatshirt that had already survived two winters, then cut jagged felt teeth and three googly eyes in different sizes and glued them in a crooked row across the chest. A pair of small foam horns went onto a headband, and I painted her face with green and purple face paint from a €5 palette that I have since used for at least four different costumes. The best detail was also the cheapest: I cut the bottom hem of the sweatshirt into uneven points with pinking shears, which took five minutes and made the whole thing look properly monstrous instead of like a sweatshirt with things stuck on it. She spent the evening roaring at neighbours, which is exactly the right energy for a monster. The only thing I would change is the face paint — put a thin layer of moisturiser on first, because otherwise it dries tight and itchy, and small children will rub at it until it smudges.
5. Robot Costumes
The robot was built almost entirely from things I was about to throw away. I took a cardboard box that had held a delivery, cut a hole for her head in the top and two armholes in the sides, and then sprayed the whole thing silver. The spray paint cost about €6 and I did it outside on the balcony, because the smell lingers indoors for hours and the overspray gets on everything. Once it was dry — give it a full day, not the hour the can promises — I glued on bottle caps for buttons, a row of coloured sticky dots for a control panel, and a strip of aluminium foil around the neck opening to hide the raw cardboard edge. A smaller box on her head, painted the same silver, finished it off. The box was a little stiff to move in, so I widened the armholes twice before she could comfortably reach up to ring a doorbell. Test the armholes early, and remember that cardboard and rain do not mix — this is a dry-evening costume.
6. Food-Themed Costumes
A cupcake costume made my niece laugh harder than anything else we tried, and it was surprisingly simple. I started with a plain white T-shirt and glued a wide band of brown felt around the waist to suggest the cupcake case, then cut a big circle of pink felt for the frosting and attached it across the chest with fabric glue. Little felt sprinkles in five different colours went on top, and a red pom-pom from the craft box became the cherry, pinned to a headband so it bobbed when she walked. The whole costume cost under €8 and took about two hours, most of it waiting for the glue to set. The thing I learned is that flat felt on a T-shirt works far better than trying to build a three-dimensional cupcake shape out of foam — the foam version I attempted first was heavy, hot, and kept sliding sideways. Keep it flat, keep it light, and let the colours do the work. A pizza slice or a hotdog works exactly the same way, and siblings in matching food costumes make for the best photographs of the evening.
7. Storybook Character Costumes
Storybook characters are perfect for school events, because the costume doubles as a conversation starter and the teacher usually loves it. We went with Little Red Riding Hood, which turned out to be one of the easiest builds of the lot: a red hooded cape made from a metre of red cotton, a basket from the kitchen, and a dress she already owned. I cut the cape in a simple rectangle with a hood sewn on top — no pattern, just measured around her shoulders and added a few centimetres for comfort — and tied it at the neck with a ribbon instead of buttons, so she could take it off by herself. The basket held a small stuffed toy wolf, which got more compliments than the costume itself. What I would do differently is the cape length: I made it ankle-length the first time and she tripped on it twice on the stairs, so I hemmed it up to just below the knee. Whatever character you choose, keep the props simple and light, and let your child carry something — a wand, a book, a basket — because it gives their hands something to do and makes them feel properly in character.
8. DIY Animal Mash-Up Costumes
The mash-up was my niece’s own invention — half lion, half unicorn — and I will admit I was sceptical until I saw it finished. We took the animal costume method from the first idea and simply combined two sets of features: a golden mane made from strips of orange and yellow felt sewn around the hood of a sweatshirt, and a single silver horn made from rolled-up card, covered in foil and glued to a headband. Butterfly wings left over from an earlier fairy costume went on the back, because in her words, “every lion-unicorn needs wings, obviously.” The result was completely ridiculous and absolutely wonderful, and it taught me that the best costumes are the ones where the child makes the decisions. My only practical note is to pick features that attach to different parts of the body — ears on the head, mane on the shoulders, wings on the back — so nothing competes for the same spot and nothing falls off when they start running. This is also the cheapest idea in the whole list if you already have felt and glue left over from other projects, since you are really just remixing what you have.
9. Supervillain or Fantasy Villain Costumes
Every child should get to be the villain at least once, and this one is mostly about attitude and a good cape. I used a black sheet I found at the back of the linen cupboard, cut it into a long cape, and sewed a high collar by folding the top edge over twice and stitching it stiff — a strip of cardboard inside the fold holds the collar up nicely. Underneath she wore black leggings and a dark purple top, with a wide belt made from a strip of gold wrapping paper folded over several times. The horns were foam cones from the craft shop, painted black and glued to a headband, and a sweep of dark face paint across her eyes finished the look. She practised her evil laugh for a full afternoon, which the neighbours may or may not have appreciated. The cape is the part to get right: make it from something light, because a heavy fabric pulls at the neck after an hour, and use Velcro at the throat rather than tying it, so it comes off instantly if it catches on anything. Safety first, villainy second.
10. DIY Group or Family-Themed Costumes
The group costume is the one I most recommend if you have siblings, cousins, or a willing parent, because the shared theme does half the work for you. We did a superhero family one year: matching capes in different colours, each with a felt emblem the child chose themselves, and the adults wore theirs too, which the kids thought was hilarious. The secret is to pick one element that is identical for everyone — same cape shape, same colour family, same style of mask — and then let each person personalise the rest. That way the group reads as a team in photographs, but nobody feels like they are wearing a uniform. We made five capes in one afternoon from three metres of fleece, and the total cost was around €15, which is less than a single shop-bought costume. Coordinate the colours before you start cutting, lay everything out on the floor and check it together, and agree on the theme early — the only argument we had was over who got to be the leader, and that one I left entirely to them.
Conclusion
Three weekends, a kitchen table covered in felt, and about €25 later, I ended up with costumes my niece still talks about a year on — not because they were perfect, but because she helped make them and because they survived a whole evening of running, roaring, and ringing doorbells. The ideas in this list all share the same logic: start with clothes you already own, use cheap materials like felt and cardboard, test everything around the flat before the big night, and let your child choose the details. A costume that is comfortable and a little bit theirs will always beat a shop-bought one that looks impressive in the packet and itches after twenty minutes.