I have three kids, they like to play dress up on occasion. Mind you, two of my three children are boys, this means dress up to them is more about some doctor, fire man or military dress up type scenario whereas my daughter would prefer a princess or witch type costume. The kids really do enjoy pretend play, every day my home is full with laughter of children giggling while they play pretend MineCraft or other pretend games. Playing dress up with last years Halloween costumes really make for a fun, creative, imaginary play date and that is just what my kids do!
There is nothing cuter than watching my three kiddos chase each other around the home with their funny kid costumes worn over their clothing and hearing; “oh no it’s s shark” or “Yay! I stole the pirates treasure” while the children run a muck having a blast in their prior year costumes. Encouraging a love of imagination by utilizing the prior years Halloween costumes really makes sense, it’s a low cost or virtually no cost way to continue enjoying that one time use costume.
If you have a closet full of old Halloween costumes that you are not sure what to do with, here are five ideas on how to utilize your kids prior year costumes;
- Host a Play-date Event – Send out invites for your children’s friends to come to a party where they can bring their prior year Halloween Costume for a fun filled day of treats and adventures!
- Mix & Match Costume Accessories – Your kids don’t fit into last years Halloween costume? No worries, put to use the accessories for a fun filed afternoon of pretend play. You can play too!
- Put Your Parental Creativity To Use – Mix and match or cut and sew each child’s costume, if they no longer fit into them, make the costume fit the kid, not the kid fit the costume. Have fun seeing what you can turn a pirate and witch costume into with a pair of scissors, needle and thread!
- Create a Neighborhood Costume Collection Bin & Create a Neighborhood Movie – This is a great way to recycle non-fitting Halloween costumes from your neighborhood. Use the collected costumes as a wardrobe for neighborhood kids to get together for their own movie creation while parents sit and watch the “finale” over popcorn and laughter!
- Make a Wall of Remembrance – Use boxed frames to memorialize each child’s funniest Halloween costume through out the years, hang this in a family room as you would with their school pictures.
There are so many things you can do with kids costumes these days that you must remember these tips when your children are choosing this years Halloween costume. Remember, life is too short and there is no such thing as too much fun!
I like the idea of re-using them! I usually end up Freecycling my old kids costumes so they can go to someone else to be used.
my kids wear costumes all the time. I don’t even really notice it much anymore. I don’t do costumes for church but anything else? fair game. they love them, and I think it’s awesome when kids dress up and do dramatic play!
My son has a costume box because he loves playing dress-up so much. 🙂
I think this is a good post. Costumes are fun all year long.
I love the idea of sending out invitations and inviting friends over with their costumes! I wish I would have read this before our endless snowdays! I could have been the hit of the neighborhood!
My 3 and 5 year old wear a costume at least once a week! LOL. This week they’ve already been spiderman and skeletons.
We would put all the costumes into our dress up, too. Then play monster mash up!
My daughters like the princess and 50’s outfit costumes! They are a lot of fun so I made them a mini closet for all their dress up stuff
Awesome ideas and very creative post.
I love recycling crafts. Costumes are so much fun to be able to change up by adding or removing. Great ideas!
Great tips for reusing Halloween costumes. We tend to use ours all year to play dress up!
Neighborhood movie night is a GREAT idea! We have so mny kiddos in the neighborhod that all get together. I would love to see them all trade costumes and get photos of them sitting still for a change!
Cute ideas! The kids use them all year to dress-up in.
We actually purchased some very cheap costumes the week after Halloween. My son plays dress up with them.
The only way I could justify Halloween costume expenses were to leave them in the dress-up bin for everyday play fun!
A costume party would be fun! We usually donate our costumes to the preschool’s dress up center.
My girls love playing dress up with Halloween costumes. They just got some princess dresses in for play time.
We keep ours for costume play too year round. And my playgroup has costume playdates!!
Great ideas! I love the idea of a costume playdate.
What great ideas! They could also come in handy for local theaters. My son performs at one of our local children’s theatres and they could use them, I’m sure. I think I’ll get out my son’s past costumes (except his very first one) and donate them. 🙂
I grew up in a different time. Costumes 1 day a year. I have already seen with this younger generation that they are not bound by such conventions and i applaud their creativity, after all, why not!
Mitch
Love these ideas. Our kids definitely love to play dress up even when it is not Halloween.
I’m glad my son isn’t the only one still wearing his costume.. He loves that thing..lol
These are all great ideas! We still have lots of little man’s costumes and he does still wear them to play in through out the year. When he outgrows them, I hand them down to my nieces little boys.
Thanks for the ideas! I love the dress up playdate idea!
Both of my children wear their costumes throughout the year! These are great ideas.
We always use our old Halloween costumes for dress up and sometimes the other way around too. Having two girls makes it easy.
We play dress-up with them all the time! It’s such a shame to waste so much money on them and never use them again.
Costume parties are always a good idea! That shark outfit is adorable.
My kids wear their costumes year round. They are huge into playing dress up, so the costumes are looking a little ratty now lol.
Great tips! We use some parts of previous costumes for dress up or play, but I love the idea of a bunch of kiddos bringing costumes together to create a movie or play. So cute.
Those are very smart ideas on reusing costumes… I like that one above too.
My daughter has used her costumes afterwards for dress up.
My kids use their costumes when a new movie comes out.
I love the idea of the costume party! Kids love Halloween- why not get dressed up in costumes at some other time in the year too?
Great ideas! We always wore our costumes a million times.
My daughter used to use hers all year round. She is big into ballroom dance so her costumes would be the centerpiece of a dance. Love reusing her old Halloween costumes!
These are some great idea. My kids are in their teens now, but still love to dress up for Halloween parties. The youngest seems to just get to recycle what my older daughter wore the year before. Good thing they have similar taste.
My boys love to get out the costumes and run around in them all year long!