Thinking back to my childhood and Halloween costumes inspires memories of hot nylon or plastic pull-on suits that vaguely resembled one of the limited character selections at K-Mart coupled with hard-to-breathe-through plastic masks held on by elastic strings that tangled in your hair. Or the sheet-with-two-eye-holes-cut-in-it ghost costume. At least my mom gave me a plain white sheet to use – and not a plaid or floral one- if the DIY ghost was my chosen Halloween character. Growing older, there was the hippy, or hobo or – of course – the ever-popular mummy. Of course, the mummy required your mom to empty the medicine cabinet of all gauze in the effort to cover your entire small body.
Today is quite different. Not only have costumes become more available, retail makers – and DIY makers – have become much more creative than back in my trick-or-treating days.
We’ve even become more creative in our thinking of what you dress up as. It’s no longer the requirement to be spooky or scary. Gone are the days when every other costume is Freddie Kruger, Frankenstein or a witch. Sometimes the funnier or more ingenious the costume, the better it’s received.
Theme parties are incredibly popular. And when themes aren’t offered, you see interesting depictions of everyone or thing from bugs to political figures (which some might think are very similar) to heroes waiting on you in stores, sitting next to you at work, and ringing your doorbell and exclaiming treat-or-treat to you on Halloween night.
Little swimmers deserve their own selection of costumes, don’t you think?
Don’t fret! There are all sorts of ideas to run with here.
The Fish
You don’t have to let your fish be a boring or typical fish. You can make quite exciting and impressive-looking fish costumes by simply getting creative with the kind of fabrics you choose when making them. Scales are easy to cut from felt and adorn with bling, dorsal fins can be made and attached to backs and tail fins on feet. Googly fish eyes easily attach to caps. Or simply make a “fish” sandwich sign that hangs with straps from your child’s shoulders.
If you want to expand this choice to include more “sea animals,” you could replicate some fun ideas for sharks – that can be created in similar ways as the fish. Use a gray hoodie with jagged teeth outlining the face. Attach a gray dorsal fin and your shark is born!. Use a little creativity on the head and turn your shark into a hammerhead! Your octopus can easily be pool noodles sticking out from under a t-shirt painted with an octopus face. Knee socks can also be used for octopus tentacles!
The Instructor
This could be especially entertaining if your child’s swim class is dressing up! Go beyond simply pulling an instructor-looking swim shirt – and perhaps a whistle – on your kiddo. Select a wig or hair style to mimic the instructor. Use a t-shirt with a face and perhaps even use as props some of the toys or items the instructor uses during class. Basically, create this costume after taking a good look at your child’s instructor. It’s amazing the identifying details that you can use for your child’s costume.
The Scuba Diver
In the same creative vein as expanding the “sea animal” costume choices, you could also easily turn your little swimmer into a scuba diver. I would have thought this was more than cool when I was a little swimmer!
This is really an easy one and many simple items, like soda bottles and electrical tape, can be used to create very authentic looking tanks, you can use a real kid’s mask and create some fins with felt or sheet foam glued to back socks. The wet suit is pretty simple since black is a pretty standard color for leggings and long sleeved t’s.
The Swim Hero
And who else would THE swim hero be but Michael Phelps?
This costume is REALLY easy.
Red, white & blue ribbon, chocolate gold coins, a tot’s swim cap and a magic marker (or felt letters), and solid-color swim trunks. Voila! Your miniature Michael Phelps!
Aquaman
This one is really simple with a bit of smart shopping. A kid’s orange swim shirt (you may even find one with the fish scale design on it) and turquoise blue 9or even green) pants, sweat pants or pajama bottoms. Put this together with a belt made of shiny gold stretch fabric and you’re set. If necessary, you can purchase a larger size shirt of the right color and cut and sew a tiny tyke’s version from it. Use felt to make the Aquaman symbol for the belt buckle!
The Mermaid
You didn’t think this one would be left out, did you? What little girl doesn’t want to be a mermaid at one time or another? This costume is one – similar to the fish costume – that can look quite impressive yet be quite simple to create.
Blingy fabrics can really jazz this one up! You could cut out scales similar to the fish scales but use a skirt shape tapered or cinched at the ankle. A tube top adorned with fabric seashells for toddlers, but a cute little bra top that looks like 2 scallop shells would be great for a baby’s mermaid version. Some sort of seashell or seashell-shaped fabric should be used in the little mermaid’s hair. Use workable fabric for the skirt and the mermaid tail can be simply created below the cinch. Or you can just allow the tail fin to trail in the back of the scale skirt.
I hope this gets your creative juices going for making this Halloween extra special for your little swimmers. There are literally thousands of pictures to look at if you just do a Google search that is something like “easy DIY kids fish Halloween costume.” Replace fish with octopus, scuba diver, etc etc to get more of these specific images.
Please share your costume ideas (and productions) with us as your get them ready for the end of October!
Conversations