10 Creative Homemade Halloween Costumes for Adults

Dressing up makes Halloween the best holiday, in our opinion. And making your own costume is the way to impress friends with your creativity and humor. Besides being more fun, making your own costume is a better choice for the environment, too, since you're reusing materials rather than buying anew. While making a homemade Halloween costume for your kid can be fun, there's nothing like finding the perfect expression for yourself, and The Daily Green has some great ideas. Actually, all we've done is ask for your best ideas. Here are some of our favorite homemade Halloween costumes, from the Web and from our audience.

Find inspiration in these 100 homemade Halloween costumes, and vote on your favorites!

The Human Etch a Sketch

This is the perfect costume for a technophobe adult in the age of the iPhone. Show the world the last piece of handheld technology that you felt comfortable with!

This crafter posted his design on Instructables.com for a functional Etch a Sketch costume, which he made from a piece of glass and a dry erase marker. Clever!

Creativity tip: Don't you want to draw on this guy, and then watch him shake it off? Everyone loves an interactive costume. Invite your friends to build your costume throughout the night, and you'll go home more made-up than when you left.

Check out the bicycle chain bracelet and more of our favorite DIY projects from Instructables.com.

Mr. and Mrs. Nostalgia

Lorie Howe (Mr. Potato Head) and Marisa Pulchin (Ms. Pac-Man) shared their Homemade Halloween costumes with The Daily Green. We imagined them going to the party together. Scandalous! What would Mrs. Potato Head and Pac Man say?

The Mr. Potato Head costume is "made with recycled newspapers and paper plates (with minimal food leavings). Even some of the paint was recycled. Used exercise balls for the shape. Used recycled newspaper for the eyes, nose and mustache. Used the recycled paper plates for the ears by gluing recycled Popsicle sticks between two plates to make them removable."

Ms. Pac-Man is made out of cardboard, posterboard, felt and a belt.

Creativity Tip: Some subscribe to the theory that the couple that dresses together stays together. We say: Odd couples make the best pairs!

For more odd matches, check out The Daily Green's guide to weird uses, where you'll find surprising alternate uses for everything from vodka and oatmeal, to pantyhose and packing peanuts.

Hamburger Dress

Take inspiration from this head-turning knit hamburger dress from Joy Kampia O'Shell. If you're vegetarian or fed up with fast food, Joy also makes an old-fashioned-sundae dress, an ice-cream cone dress and a tasty-looking crocheted doughnut necklace.

Creativity tip: Think with your stomach! Everybody loves food, so look to your kitchen for props, materials – and inspiration!

Check out this newspaper dress and 17 utterly unique dresses made from recycled materials. Also check out Lady Gaga's Meat Dress and 16 more weird meat creations.

Clutter Costumes

Lucie Gilot shared this creative evil robot creation with The Daily Green. She writes, "This is a handmade two-man operated robot costume made entirely from cardboard, duct tape (the main ingredient), foil, old window screens and a child's space toy gun (found in a thrift store for 50 cents)."

Read that again. Total cost: 50 cents.

Danielle R.P. writes of the Crest toothpaste costume: "This is made from a long pillowcase, and a lampshade — both from Goodwill... and a little bit of paint."

Creativity Tip: Scour your basement, your attic and your drawers for materials. Half-finished rolls of duct tape, old pillowcases and lampshades, ill-fitting window screens and cardboard boxes: they're all clutter – until you make them into a costume.

Check out these surprising ways to use aluminum foil and bottles (including an amazing beer bottle temple)!

Recycled Umbrella Bat Costume

Winged mammals of the night, bats are surprisingly beneficial to farmers, and an important part of the natural environment. Unfortunately, bats have long been misunderstood, even persecuted, and their numbers have been dwindling due to habitat loss, pollution and a mysterious disease called white nose syndrome.

But you can show your love for the mammal that defines Halloween fright with this relatively easy costume fashioned from an old umbrella. Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories shows you exactly how. The only materials you need are an umbrella and a hooded zippered sweatshirt, as well as some common tools: needle and thread, pins, pliers, scissors and bolt cutters or tin snips.

Learn these 7 surprising facts about bats (along with creepy photos!) and see which species of bats are threatened by white nose syndrome.

Movie Masterpieces

Who would ever have thought of making a costume out of Zoltar, the mechanical game that figures pivotally for Tom Hanks' character in Big? New Yorker Jonathan Gleich, that's who. He took first prize at the 2009 Coney Island Mermaid Parade with his homemade Zoltar, using his Segway as a moving base (so clever!). (See the making of Segway Zoltar).

Below left, Joe. S took inspiration from one of Michael J. Fox's lesser-loved movies, Teen Wolf, rather than going for the better-known, but less visually stimulating Marty McFly or Alex P. Keaton.

Below right, Vanessa Cook and friends found a way to make an ensemble cast as a couple of less-loved Goonies – big brother Brand and Stef (the one who kisses Mouth) – along with the master villain herself, Ma Fratelli!

Creativity Tips: Heroes are for kids. Go with a sidekick or memorable bit character to surprise and delight your friends. Repeat after me: "Chewbacca, not Han Solo, gets invited to the after-party."

Get inspired! We have 100+ more homemade Halloween costume ideas. And if you have a better idea, you can submit it for others to see!

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