at number 18: Homemade Halloween how to make a bride, a groom, a bat, a robot and a ghost!

Halloween is one of my favourite times of year and my children are getting to the age where they can celebrate it to. We have had a great time this year making decorations and different types of Halloween food. we invited a few people round and had a little halloween party.

This was my best costume ever! My mum made the dress and I modified it. My mum is a seamstress so always has plenty of scrap fabric. To make this you need to start by making a long white dress, sew a bit of lace on and it will automatically look like a wedding dress. Then for the blood i used water and red food colouring. I made it look dirty with grey and black paints from the kids bedroom. As for the flowers... they were a birthday present and I left them to die!! The whole thing cost nothing. You could easily re-create this, you could buy a long white dress from a charity shop or ebay quite cheaply.

Now dave's costume was a little more 'expensive'!!!! The suit and tie cost £4 and the white shirt he had in his wardrobe unworn for years. We used the same red food colouring and grey paint. We just ripped and teared parts of his suit. Both costumes have gone to new homes after selling them on ebay, its really nice to know that someone else would have enjoyed them this year.

This year I wanted the kids to be comfortable with what they were wearing and enjoy wearing them so we decided to let them choose, apart from Millie, as she has only just turned 2 she doesn't really know whats going on. I made a ghost outfit for her. Leon isn't keen in all things scary and opted for a bat costume, and Toby wanted to be a robot!! I told him this wasn't 'halloweeny' but he insisted!

So Leon's first ,he doesn't like facepaint or hats so his was really simple! All you need is a long sleeved black t-shirt from the sale rail in Matalan and a pound shop umbrella.

Take off all the other parts and just leave the long metal bits in.

I glued in the metal bits in the ends and then you need to sew them to the umbrella near the top. I also put duct tape round the top ends so they woundn't poke him.

And there you have it bat wings, this isn't the best picture as he was to shy to have it done proper!

Next is toby's which is super easy. All you need is a box, dryer duct, kitchen foil, grey spray paint. Obvisouly this is really easy to do, we added some hazard tape for extra effect. once you have made the box, glue the foil on, add some hazard tape. We had some old dryer duct we never used and cut it to size for the arms and legs and sprayed it, once he had the costume on we cable tied the arms to the box. You will need spares for when they need the loo! Face painted and all ready to go!

Millies dress was the first ever dress I have made, it was so easy! The great thing is that for halloween outfits it doesn't have to be perfect. This was made from 20cmx100m pieces of old cotton sheeting (again from mums) but you could use an old sheet, curtains, as long as it white! I sewed it all together and sprayed grey spray paint around the arms and bottom of the dress. Added cobwebs from last years Halloween decorations and all ready to go!