Last-Minute Parade Costumes from Things You Already Have
Left your costume to the last minute? No problem. Here are easy costumes you can pull together with clothes, paper, and odds and ends you probably already have—literally in minutes. If none of these appeal, don't sweat it! Come just as you are and have a great time appreciating other people's costumes.
Seven easy last-minute costumes
Each of these is readable from across the schoolyard, uses common materials, and is simple to explain if someone asks what you are.
1. Jellyfish
Materials: Light-colored clothes, an umbrella, and something for tentacles: ribbon, yarn, bubble wrap, packing paper, strips of plastic bag, or leftover shipping ribbons. Clear tape helps.
How to: Wear light colors. Open the umbrella and hold it over your head (or wear it in a way that's safe for you). Tape long pieces of your chosen materials around the inside edge of the umbrella so they trail down like tentacles. Visually striking and hard to get wrong.
2. Black cat
Materials: All-black clothes, a headband, paper or thin cardboard, eyeliner or a washable marker, and a belt, scarf, or cord for a tail.
How to: Cut triangle ears from paper or cardboard and tape them to the headband. Add simple whiskers and a nose with eyeliner. Pin or tie the scarf or cord to the back of your pants or belt loop as a tail. The classic for a reason — especially if you already own black from head to toe.
3. Bumblebee
Materials: A yellow shirt, black electrical tape or black ribbon, cardboard for wings, a dark hat or headband, and scrap solid-core wire, pipe cleaners, or twist ties for antennae.
How to: Run horizontal stripes of tape or ribbon across the yellow shirt. Cut two small ovals or rounded shapes from cardboard for wings and pin or tape them to your upper back. Shape two small pieces of wire (or use pipe cleaners) into antennae and attach them to the hat or headband, bending the tips a little at the end.
4. Houseplant in a pot (or climbing vine)
Materials: Green clothing, paper or cardstock, tape, a brown paper grocery bag (for the potted look), and optionally green wire, twine, or more paper for a vine effect.
How to — potted plant: Cut leaf shapes and tape them along your sleeves and shoulders. Cut or fold the top of a brown paper grocery bag so you can wear it around your waist like a “pot” (comfortably, over other clothes) — that's what sells the joke.
How to — climbing vine: If you prefer not to use a pot, cut several leaf shapes, then use wire or twine to loosely fasten the leaves in a line along your arms, torso, and legs so you read as a vine on a trellis or wall.
5. Spider
Materials: Black clothes, three or four pairs of long black socks (or black tights), crumpled newspaper, safety pins.
How to: Stuff the socks or tights with newspaper to give them body. Safety-pin them to the sides of your shirt so they stick out to the sides like extra legs. Funny, recognizable, and a hit with kids.
6. Sunflower
Materials: Green clothes, yellow paper, tape, a headband or baseball cap, and optionally brown paper or cardboard for the flower center.
How to: Cut petal shapes from yellow paper and tape them around the brim of a cap or all along a headband. If you can, add a brown circle of paper or cardboard on your shirt for the center of the flower. Instantly happy and easy to read.
7. Cactus
Materials: A green long-sleeve shirt, white paper or short pieces of white yarn or blunt wire, tape or safety pins.
How to: Fold small strips of paper into a “V” shape, or use short pieces of white yarn, and secure them all over the shirt. For a saguaro-style look, keep your arms bent up at about ninety degrees. Bonus: you have an excuse to stand like that in photos.
A few more quick ideas
Even faster starters if you have the right color in your closet or a few craft scraps:
- Ladybug — A red shirt with black dots cut from paper or drawn with a marker; optional pipe-cleaner antennae on a headband.
- Human bouquet / flower crown — Real or paper flowers in your hair, with an extra stem or two in a shirt pocket for a “picked from the garden” look.
- Frog — A green top, a light paper or felt belly, and bumpy “eyes” made from paper cups, ping-pong ball halves, or card stock on a headband.
- Pumpkin (jack-o'-lantern) — An orange shirt with black paper triangles (eyes and mouth) taped on, and a green hat or stem made from paper as the top of the fruit.
Ready to join the All Species Parade?