Homemade Halloween Costume for Your Child

Build on a sweatsuit, not from scratch

The shortcut experienced parents use is a base outfit: a hoodie and sweatpants (or leggings) in the character's main color, with felt details on top. You skip pattern-making and sewing, and the costume is warm enough for late-October trick-or-treating in the US, UK and Canada. In Australia it's spring, so a T-shirt and shorts base works better. Buy the base one size up so a long-sleeve layer or jacket fits underneath. Pick a character with 3-5 recognizable features, like dinosaur spikes, cat ears and tail, or a superhero emblem. If you can't name its key features in one breath, it's too complicated for a two-week timeline.

Glue choice decides whether it survives the night

• Hot glue cracks off stretchy fabric the first time a kid bends. Use it only on stiff parts like headbands, cardboard and the seams of stuffed felt pieces.
• Anything attached to the sweatshirt or hood gets permanent fabric glue, plus a few running stitches on anything that sticks out (ears, spikes, tail). Fabric glue needs about 24 hours to cure, so do the attaching early in the week, not the night before.
• Slide a piece of cardboard or a cereal box inside the shirt before gluing so glue doesn't seep through and stick the front to the back.
• Keep pieces off elbows, knees and the seat. That's where they peel first.
• For toddlers under 3, skip buttons, pom-poms and googly eyes. Cut those details from felt instead, since anything small that pops off is a choking risk.

Spend time on the face-framing parts, save it everywhere else

People recognize a costume from the head and the front of the torso. Put your effort into the ears, hood or emblem, and keep the back and legs simple. Skip full masks: they block side vision and kids pull them off within 10 minutes. Use a headband or hood attachment plus a little face paint instead. Cut every piece from a paper template first. Felt is cheap, but running out of the one color you need two days before Halloween isn't. Make the headpiece while the flat pieces cure, so the 24-hour wait costs you nothing.

How to tell it's done

Your child wears it for 15 minutes, walks up and down stairs, sits on the floor and raises both arms, and nothing falls off, pinches or drags on the ground. They can see their feet and both sides without turning their head. Stitch reflective tape on the front and back for evening walks. Felt and fiberfill catch fire easily, so keep your child at least 3 ft (1 m) from candle-lit jack-o'-lanterns, or switch your own pumpkins to battery tea lights.