by David Lawson

It's that time of year again when kids Halloween costumes will need to either be made or bought. Neither option needs to cost lots of money, you could utilise items already in your house or buy items to compliment the outfit.

If you have girls you might be able to alter one of their dressing up outfits into a scary costume. Fairy dresses can be turned into witches dresses quite easily, use make up to make a witch's face and black out teeth.

For a simple ghost outfit try using a small sheet, cut a hole into the middle of it for the head, then paint the child's face white with face paints and then blacken their eyes with paint.

You could turn the sheet outfit into something for bigger kids to wear by buying teeth for Dracula, broomsticks for witches, plastic bats and eye patches for dressing the costume up. These additional bits don't cost much money.

If you don't have the time to make a costume, you will be able to find complete costumes with all the extras for not very much money. They can sell out of stock very fast prior to Halloween so buy early.

Boys like anything that is gory and horrific, so use an abundance of gory face paints and fake blood capsules, and break them on their old clothes. Cut up unused items of their clothes and rub a bit of dirt in. You can buy plastic sheet capes for a minimal amount of money, which can be used again and again.

Letting older children paint their own face with a little bit of guidance from you would add to the fun and excitement for them. In many toy shops you can buy additional small items like pretend spiders, cobwebs and fake blood to make kids costumes more realistic. - 39969