Spooky season is lurking–head to any retail store and you’ll certainly feel its ghostly presence! I’ve yet to begin working on this year’s Halloween costumes, but now that I’m back to posting regularly, I wanted to share some costumes from previous years.

It was 2021 when my youngest son took his first turn at choosing our family costume, and he chose for himself to be a monarch butterfly. As a fam, we had a DIY life cycle of a butterfly costume, made of all recycled materials.

Last year was his second time picking, and he wanted to be a jellyfish! We had recently checked out The Strangest Thing in the Sea from the library, and we decided he could be a bioluminescent jellyfish–one that glowed in the dark.

DIY Glowing Jellyfish Costume

I remembered seeing jellyfish umbrella costumes in the past, like these ones:

But my little guy was only in preschool, so I didn’t want him unable to use both of his hands because he was holding his umbrella. Thankfully, I found a video on Pinterest of a hat jellyfish costume. Another great example is Robin Sanchez‘s costume:

These were great inspiration, however I wanted to keep in line with my previous years’ ideal of using only recycled materials. Using yards and yards of just-right iridescent fabric, or gluing a plastic bowl to a woven sunhat, like in the video link, was out of the question.

Luckily, we had recently received a package in which the shipper used a lot of plastic grocery bags as shipping insulation. Plastic bags are mostly out of use here in Connecticut–as they should be.

I used a round cardboard base and sculpted an inner hat out of cardboard, much like I did with the monarch butterfly caterpillar costume, so that the hat would be stable and not slip. I puffed out bags as filler and used crumpled catalog paper underneath to give it more volume.

The undercarriage of the hat was inspired by those mushroom hat costumes that seem to have gotten pretty popular as of late, if last year’s Renaissance Faire was any indicator. I used scrap fabric from a previous costume for that part, and leftover materials from my DIY circle weave from a hula hoop to create the tentacles. The only items purchased new for these costumes were battery powered fairy lights.

The above photos are from his preschool costume parade. The weekend prior to Halloween, we attended our town’s annual Halloween event, Fairfield Halloween on the Green.

Our local library hosted a costume contest and he WON!

There he is with his first medal!

DIY Glowing Anglerfish Costume

While my kids were in school on Halloween, I was coming through in the clutch with a last minute costume of my own: an angler fish costume made of cardboard. The eyes were from a toy plastic ball, and the inner mouth was construction paper. I used much of what I learned last year from the caterpillar headpiece to create this anglerfish hat.

I like creating hat costumes for the adults because in our town, parents rarely dress up with the kids much more than a witch hat or cat ears. Going full costume or full makeup is just too extreme for regular trick or treating, so I get creative within the constraints of what is the social norm.

Notable inspiration behind my light up anglerfish costume hat include this costume posted by Lota LeTourneau on pinterest:

and this papier-mâché anglerfish from gourmetpapermache.com

Other Sea Creature Costumes

My husband’s costume was extra simple because we’ve had those lobster claws for years! I made him the headband, cut an old plastic ball in half and painted the parts black for the eyes, then covered some thick gauge wire with red yarn.

My teenager wore a scuba mask. If you know anything about teenagers, this surprises you not at all.

The Costume in Action

The Costumes all lit up

We weren’t out in the dark for long, as preschoolers don’t have a lot of stamina, regardless of how many full size candy bars are offered. But if my son was older these costumes would have been perfect for street visibility!