The Trick to Getting the Most Out Of Your Halloween Costumes

Halloween is my favorite holiday, but with four (and sometimes six) kids, costumes can get EXPENSIVE!  Luckily, I’ve learned how to turn Halloween costumes from an expensive, commercialized trick into a year long treat for the children and my pocket book!

Costumes tend to be costly, particularly for what you get in return for your hard earned dollars. A $20-25 costume is often little more than cheap, thin cloth that ties or Velcros at the neck and back. It can’t be washed, tears easily, and provides little warmth on Halloween night, and less usage after.  With a little creativity and ingenuity, however, you can get months of wear from a higher quality costume for the same relative cost.

Here are my best tips for extending costume wear:

1. Use actual clothing in the creation of your costume.  For example, Cady was a scarecrow for her first Halloween!  Using yellow felt, cut in to fringe, and washable craft glue, I glued felt into the cuffs of a pair of jeans and a plaid button up shirt from the baby boy’s department. I added fake patches on the knees and elbows using colored felt and craft glue. Some exaggerated red cheeks and yellow hair paint in her hair, and she was an adorable scare crow. After Halloween, I removed the patches and ‘draw’, washed out the glue, and used the warm outfit throughout the winter.

I’ve done the same for other costumes: a hoodie and sweatpants with felt ‘spikes’ and a tail make an excellent dinosaur. A pink skirt, pink tights, red shirt, pink ears and tail, paired with pink face paint and hairspray make an excellent pepper pig. Pink sweats and a Fluttershy Hoodie make an adorable My Little Pony, and that hoodie will be one from October to May (or blue sweats and a rainbow dash ball cap for Rainbow Dash)! A striped shirt and skirt  plus black and white face paint makes an adorable zebra, plus provides clothes that can be re-worn time and again.

We’ve used this technique for Toothless the dragon, the Heathers from Heathers (often we’ll all pick a theme and go as something from the theme! Great fun!),  countless cats, dogs, and witches, zebras, devils, a cheerleader, and literary characters.  This year, Punkie is using this costume method to play a Possessed Child in a local Haunted Forest attraction!

2. Onesie Pajamas.

These may be the most loved costumes of any as far as my kids are concerned! Pikachu is the favorite, but rainbow dash and elephant are used often too. (Rainbow Dash is the only PJs Cady wears!)
Available at Walmart and target, as well as amazon, these full body fleece pajamas come as favorite characters, including hoods. A little face paint and you’re ready to go.  Best of all, they’re warm and comfortable, and as they tend to run large and are supposed to be baggy, last for years.  All four of my girls have used theirs are pajamas and lounge wear for going on 3 years now, meaning I spent $25 each on four costumes that have been worn hundreds of times!

Regular pajamas work as well! Cady was the cutest “skelebaby” ever, and those jammies kept her warm many nights!

With either option one or two, proper make up and accessories make the costume work. Personally, the spray-able hair paint is key, and proper make up is essential. I prefer actual makeup, like Wet n Wild’s Fantasy collection, over Halloween grease paint. The Paint Pots are fantastic under or over foundation, or all by themselves, and I’m obsessed with the multi stick! It lasts through the night, looks better, and is better for the skin! 

3. High quality costumes.

For those characters that they are obsessed with and already play pretend as often, I don’t mind spending a little money on a high quality, real cloth costume. This privilege is reserved  for Absolute Favorite Characters, however, and never used for generics like “policeman”, “cute puppy”, or “mermaid”. The year that How to Train Your Dragon 2 came out, we splurged and spent $45 on an Astrid costume for Punkie. She’d gone as Toothless the year before (using the same technique as I mentioned for a dinosaur costume, but with wings added and eyes painted onto a black hoodie) and we knew she’d wear it often. She played as Astrid until the costume no longer fit, then gave it to her little sister. Definitely worth $45 for the two years we got out of it!

I use these techniques for myself as well!  Since I'm a photographer, I've bought dresses, high quality costumes, and more for photoshoots that are used several times a year.  My steam punk dress doubles as a pirate dress, and the corsets and petticoats I bought to shoot pinup have been used for pinup, burlesque, and other shoots, and in addition to using the costumes for multiple shoots, I've personally worn everything in my costume closet to various events through out the year!

Additionally, buying items after Halloween like hats, makeup, cloaks and capes, and other accessories allow you to get the pieces that turn next year's sweats or skirt into a ninja or cowboy costume at 75% - 90% off!

With a little creativity and planning, plus some makeup and craft supplies, you can get the most bang for your costume buck, and ensure that your costumes are used throughout the year!

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Sticky Notes & Blank Boxes

I had this great planner post planned for y’all, talking about how much I love my Happy Planner and how helpful it’s been in helping me at least somewhat control the chaos and how I use the pretty stickers I’ve found and/or made and the usefulness of sticky notes (you know the kind- you’ve seen a thousand of them!), but it didn’t end up working out the way if planned (much like everything else in my life!)

You see, as I was getting ready to get pictures and adding my pain tracker stickers I made, I was becoming upset at how many “boxes” of things I’d put in the calendar to be done were left unfinished at the end of the week.  I was feeling rather unaccomplished, and down on myself, and was going to scrap the post, when I realized that I was ignoring the REAL post hiding in my planner!

Y’all, it’s so easy to be hard on ourselves. It’s easy to look at what hasn’t been accomplished and let the ugly voice in our heads tell us we’re failures, but maybe THAT is my lesson to learn today.

This week, there have been several days where I have run out of spoons. Pain and exhaustion have just gotten the best of me, and most of my tasks have remained undone.

But there’s plenty that has been done. 

I know that, when my AS is flaring up, I have to limit myself. I can cook AND clean, but if I do that, I can’t go to work. Or, I can go to work AND cook dinner, but I can’t clean. I know, that at the most, I can accomplish 2 of these things, but almost never all three.  It’s not plausible, and attempting to do so can derail the entire week.

One way that I’ve unintentionally built this flexibility into my planner is via the use of sticky notes.  Priority tasks  and inflexible tasks, like work, for example, are inked into my planner in the correct color. Less high priority tasks, like craft projects, and tasks with some flexibility, like cleaning under the sofa, are put on sticky notes.  This allows me a certain flexibility. Didn’t get the ironing done Monday? Move the sticky note to Wednesday. 

Arg!  Not a single "check box" checked!  That's ok!  Move it to another day!

It’s important not to be too hard on ourselves.  It’s important to acknowledge our successes, while tackling our failures.  As my health is often fragile, I have to remind myself to prioritize, and to give myself time and rest. 

Sometimes, we need to allow ourselves some sticky notes and blank boxes in life’s calendar. 

How do you build flexibility into your life?

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Combatting Stress

It’s been an especially long time since my last post, and we’ve been through what seems like a million changes, but the one thing that is alike for both non-parents and parents of all types- biological parent, adopted parents, kinship parents, grandparents, and everyone in between- has inspired tonight’s post.

Stress. We all feel it. Whether it’s financial worries, a term paper, a past approaching deadline at work, or the myriad of stresses that tiny humans bring, it seems that it’s always hanging around.

Due to mental health project I’ve been working on, stress has been on my mind lately.  Not just the causes of stress, which are many, but the physical and mental implications, and how to decrease stress’s impact as well.

In small doses, stress can actually be beneficial to us. According to a 2014 article by ulifeline.org, stress can boost the immune system to help prevent infection, help improve focus to help us knock out a big project, or help improve memory.  Unfortunately, stress never seems to show up in “small doses”.

Unfortunately, stress seldom shows up in small doses.  In larger doses, stress can negatively impact our health, causing higher blood pressure, immune problems, and long term heart damage.   It's important to control our stress levels in order to minimize long term physical and mental health repercussions.

One of the most important traits we can achieve is self-awareness. By obtaining the ability to be self-aware, we can protect ourselves against physical and mental health concerns, including stress.  By recognizing our stress triggers, we can attempt to avoid them.  I use a journal page, which I'll be releasing soon, to track my moods and possible stressors.  You can easily do the same in an app, on a calendar, or in your diary.

For stress that cannot be avoided, there are steps we can take to minimize its impact.   According to WebMD, the following tips might help you in reducing stress:
1. Meditate
2. Breathe Deeply
3. Be present
4. Reach Out to others
5. Tune in to Your Body
6. Decompress with warm towels, massage, etc.
7. Laugh
8. Listen to music
9. Exercise
10. Count your blessings

I would add a few other suggestions to that list:
1. Splurge a little
It doesn't need to be expensive, but a small splurge can lift your spirits.  For me, a Pumpkin Spice Latte does the trick.  Maybe a new nail color, or a paperback book would be the boost you need.
2. Surround yourself with relaxing smells.
Again, pumpkin spice is an instantaneous relaxant for me. Vanilla helps.  I especially like to add those scents to …
3. A warm bath.
A warm bubble bath helps relax the muscles and decompress after a long day.  With some Epson salt, low lights or candles, and a cup of tea or coffee,  and I'm ready to take on the world again!




As I suffer from both Ankylosing Spondylitis, and Borderline Personality Disorder, stress has a very strong effect on both my physical and mental health, so I've made a habit of self-awareness, with the goal of preventing too much stress.  I avoid people and situations that stress me out whenever possible, and when it can't be avoided, I buy myself (or make myself, as I roast my own coffee beans and keep a small supply of flavored creamer on hand) a latte (or a vodka!), run a hot bath, and grab a book or run on my apple music, and take 15-20 minutes to reduce the stress as much as I can.


What stresses you out the most, and what techniques work best to control it? Let me know in the comments below!

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