Artist and Masterpiece Sibling Costumes
I am lazy. I don’t sew and I refuse to spend $30 on a child’s costume that is ugly and will fall apart. My 4 year old daughter kept changing her mind about her costume from ghost to kitty to my personal favorite, “I just want to be a regular little girl”. My daughter loves, loves, LOVES to draw and paint and so I suggested that she be an artist. She loved the idea. She loved the idea even more when I said that her little brother could be her work of art and that she could (pretend to) paint him. So simple and easy!
The costume was a huge hit! We got a lot of compliments on how cute and creative the concept was. It was mostly laziness rather than creativity, but hey, I’ll take it!
ARTIST/PAINTER COSTUME
-Art Smock / Art Apron / Old button down shirt
-Beret
-Artist’s Palette
-Paint Brush
-Paint smudges on face and smock
-Pencil mustache (optional)
My daughter already had this art smock from Ikea. I wanted to have paint splatters all over her, but that smock wipes up so nicely that nothing will really dry on it 😦 I found the beret on Amazon and I had a Swagbucks giftcard, so it was free! I got the artist’s palette and paint brushes at Michael’s. We have paintbrushes at home but I wanted something a little bigger. There was a less expensive plain white palette but I let Adaline choose which one to get. She chose the watercolor palette which was fine because she would definitely use the watercolors and now I didn’t have to add paint to the white palette for her costume.
If you don’t have an art smock you can use an old white button down shirt as a smock. Be sure to smear it with lots of paint…artists are never clean! If you don’t have a palette and don’t want to buy one you can always make one by cutting the shape into cardboard or cardstock and coloring in the paint. That was more work than I wanted to do (remember the keyword today is “lazy“), so the $4 I spent on the palette was worth it to me.
I also think it would be cute to draw a curly mustache on your artist, but my daughter was having none of that!
MASTERPIECE/WORK OF ART COSTUME
-Long-sleeved white shirt (a few sizes bigger)
-Painted Canvas
-Picture Frame (optional)
-Hot Glue Gun (to glue the canvas to the shirt)
My original idea for the masterpiece was to use larger canvases and have my son wear them hanging over his shoulders sandwich board style. He’s 20 months old and falls over for no reason at all sometimes, so when I saw the smaller 9×12 canvas panels I got the idea to hot glue it directly to his shirt instead. I also thought it would be really cute to glue a frame from the dollar store around the canvas, but I didn’t think that sounded too comfortable or safe for my little boy. Instead I just added the little sign that said “Masterpiece” so that I didn’t have to keep explaining the costume to people. It worked brilliantly and we got a lot of compliments 🙂
It’s important to note that I got my son’s shirt a little larger (he wears 18-24m and this shirt is a 3T) because you need the extra room once the canvas is glued to the shirt. If the shirt were any smaller I wouldn’t have been able to fit it over his head.
The canvas panels I used were a set of 5 from Michael’s. You can get single canvases as well, but they didn’t have any at Michael’s and I knew that my daughter would use all of them.
Instead of using a canvas you could use card stock, card board, poster board, a pillowcase, just about anything that you can paint/draw on and then attach to or hang from a shirt. You can even just draw/paint directly onto the shirt itself. It doesn’t get any easier than that!
Adaline actually painted the canvas herself. After it dried I hot glued the canvas onto a long sleeved tee.
Here’s the list of actual items that I used:
(None of these are affiliate links)
SMOCK: Ikea MÅLA Long sleeve apron, green $3.99
PALETTE: Michael’s Creatology Watercolor Palette $3.99
PAINT BRUSH: Michael’s Creatology Brushes (Set of 3) $1.99
BERET: Classic Black Wool Beret Cap $5.91 Sold by Accessory World on Amazon.com
TEE: Garanimals Long Sleeve Basic Tee $3.88
CANVAS: Michael’s Artist’s Loft 9×12 Canvas Panel Value Pack (5 pack) $7.99
Did your kids dress up for Halloween this year?
What is your favorite “lazy” Halloween costume?
Let me know in the comments!
This post is linked to: Skip To My Lou: Made by You Monday / Clumsy Crafter: Costume Link Up / Kids Activities Blog: It’s Playtime / SITS Saturday Sharefest / The Mom Creative: Halloween Costumes Link Up
*If you’d like a laugh (or nightmares) read about 1984 Creepy Costumes on my other blog.
Read my personal blog www.imakemyselfthequeen.com.
Posted on October 28, 2013, in Costumes, Fall, Halloween, Holidays and tagged artist, costume, fall, Halloween, no sew. Bookmark the permalink. 37 Comments.
That is the best costume EVER!! I seriously love the involvement of your child in this, instead of just buying something expensive.
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Thank you 🙂 My daughter loved painting it and she painted two other canvases that day. She’s also anxious to use the watercolors that we bought for her costume.
I love your name, by the way, so close to my Adaline 🙂
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Cutest Halloween costume idea I have seen in a long time!
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Thank you! At first I was just going to dress my son as something completely different and then it just hit me out of nowhere that he should be her work of art! My husband thought it was weird until we started getting all the compliments!
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Very cool. Nice job. I like how you paired your kids for the event.
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Everyone loves a good group costume! Thanks! 🙂
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That is awesome!! Love the creativity!!
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Oh, thank you 🙂 It was really just laziness turned accidental creativity 😉
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I love this! How great of an idea!
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Thanks, Jill! I love how easy it was 🙂
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Oh em geee! Those are so cute! I can never come up with stuff like this! I did consider having my son be Daryl Dixon and my daughter a baby zombie, but those were a lot of work lol. stopping in from the Blogelina link up!
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haha, what a cute idea! But, yeah, zombies can involve a lot of make up 🙂 This was really just born out of my laziness and ended up being creative.
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What an adorable costume for both of them! And I love the fact that you can use all the items again! Thanks for linking up at Bloggers Brags Weekly Pinterest Party. I pinned your post to the Bloggers Brags Pinterest Board.
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Me too! Simple, cheap, easy, and reusable!
Thanks for pinning me 🙂
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Totally adorable, kids and dressing up one of life’s greatest pleasures. Visiting form Bloggers Brag Pinterest party. Now off to pin.
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Thanks, Karen 🙂 Dressing up was always my favorite part of Halloween as a kid. I’m so glad that my daughter was excited about this very simple costume!
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This is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen! OMG, so creative (and inexpensive!).
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Yay, thank you, Missy! It really was inexpensive and everything can be used again. It could be done even cheaper using poster board instead of canvas and either using a cheaper palette or making one out of poster board or cardboard. My daughter really enjoy creating her masterpiece, so that was a big bonus as well 🙂
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This is more creative than a store bought costume and it also says something about the person wearing it. Great job to your daughter!
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Thanks, Louisa. My daughter loves art and she was very exciting to create some of her own paintings for the costume. All that I could find at the store were rows of tacky Disney princess costumes, blech.
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Love the costumes! I have two girls and always like when their costumes coordinate! (Although, that’s not happening this year.) Very creative and economical!
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Amanda, my sister and I are very close in age and some years we had coordinating (or identical) costumes and other years they were completely different. I planned on dressing my son as something completely different when this idea hit me. It probably won’t be as easy next year when he has an opinion! 😉
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I love this costume! So simple, yet so creative. I am horrible at thinking of creative things for my kids to be. This is fabulous. 🙂
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Thanks, Kara 🙂 It was accidentally creative. I was really just trying to get my daughter to stick with one thing and not change her mind. I know that she loves art so I hoped that would seal the deal and it did 🙂 Who knows what they’ll be next year! Thanks for commenting and pinning 🙂
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Dude, where were you when I was dropping mad cash on my kids’ costumes? Actually, my daughter is wearing a hand-me-down, so maybe I’m exaggerating, but…
LOVE the artist and masterpiece idea! Stealing it next year, thank you!
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Thieve away, my friend 🙂 And aren’t those costume prices ridiculous?! And then they fall apart right away. It’s craziness!
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Oh my word, that is a cute idea. Way to go! I am creatively challenged myself and can never come up with anything unique. I guess it helps that my kiddos pretty much want to stick to superheroes and princesses.
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haha 🙂 I wasn’t even really trying to be creative. My daughter really loves art so I was “inspired” by that fact. The Masterpiece thing just hit me one day as a cheap easy thing to do. My hubby was all set to get him a Superman costume!
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SOOO cute!
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Thank you, Renee! These were such easy costumes to throw together 🙂
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These costumes are beyond cute! I love them! Super creative. 🙂
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Thanks for commenting, Kristine! These were such a big hit this year I’m wondering if the kids will want to do this again next year. Yes, I am that lazy 😉
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I never take the time to comment on blogs, (came from The Mom Creative) but I had to tell you how creative, thoughtful, purposeful, and most of all, adorable these costumes are! Best of 2013!
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Thank you, Ashley 🙂 It means a lot to me that you would take the time to comment. I read a lot of blogs too and I rarely have the time to comment (because it can be very time consuming), so I do appreciate you taking the time to let me know that you liked the costumes 🙂
I doubt I’ll ever come up with such a “winner” of a costume again: quick, cheap, easy, and a reflection of what my daughter loves. It was just icing on the cake that it ended up being accidentally cute and creative 🙂
Thanks again for your comment!
(And P.S. If you’re a blogger I’d love for you to send me your blog link so that I can check it out!)
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Haha this is really cute! My boys would love this!
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