For Halloween my kids wanted to be Buzz Lightyear and Tinkerbell.

Because I am cheap frugal, I cannot force myself to pay full price for costumes/dress-up.

I usually score a few dress-up items after Halloween that my kids destroy enjoy from one year to the next,
but those store-bought costumes aren’t the highest of quality and rarely make it to the next year.

So when Carter said he wanted to be Buzz, I thought, “I can do this!”
Then Lydia decided that she wanted to be Tink.

(Sorry I didn’t take pictures as I was making these.  I hadn’t initially planned on blogging it!)

Off to the dollar store.
I bought her wings, fairy shoes and green tee shirt from the dollar store(as well as a glow-in-the-dark wand for fun).

I had previously started making a tutu that I never finished.
(I’m a chronic project starter.  I am not a chronic project finisher!)

And I got a pair of green shorts from a friend and made them into a skirt.

Over all, I don’t remember how much I spent on tulle and elastic, but I do remember that I got it on sale at Joann’s.
The shorts were free, and the dollar store items were…well…a dollar each.
Grand total: around $15.
Yes, I probably could have bought a Tink costume for only five more dollars, but look how cute she is!
(And really?  I only spent $4 in stuff I didn’t already have.)

For Buzz?  We happen to have about a million Buzz Lightyear items in our house and I used them as a guide.
I took a plain white tee shirt($3.50 from Walmart) and hand-sketched a Buzz shirt with Sharpie.
Then we colored it in with colored Sharpies, which was fun for all of us!

Next part?  Wings!
I’d seen instructions in Family Fun on how to make fairy wings and thought I could use that same idea.
I took 2 (24pack) Diet Coke boxes and opened them up flat.
I taped them together and hand-sketched and cut out the basic shape of the wings.
I used 3 basic hangers and  bent them just a little so that none of the pointy pieces were sticking out.
Then I duct taped those suckers to the cardboard, side-to-side long ways so that they went from one end to the other.
Then I wrapped the entire thing up in duct tape.
(I love me some duct tape!)

After that I painted out the wings(with acrylic paint I already had at home) and attached then to an old backpack with…
…you guessed it!  Duct Tape.

Because the paint so easily scratched off of my beloved duct tape, I covered it in a layer of mod podge.

So…a $3.50 tee shirt, some hangers, an old backpack, two boxes, some paint and a $3 roll of duct tape got me this:

I finished it off with a white pair of pants he already had and a pair of my green socks over his shoes.

Only $6.50!  Woo-hoo!

Trick-or-treat!

There are no pictures of Asa because…honestly…he’s too little to care.  He’ll be wearing a Woody “costume” (also known as pajamas that are 2 sizes too big).