Purim on the Net - Easy to Make Purim Costumes

Easy to Make
Purim Costumes

Twenty years ago, Purim costumes were homemade renditions of the Megillah characters: little girls were Queen Esther, little boys her Uncle Mordechai.

At today's Purim carnivals, you might still see an Esther or two (complete with tinfoil crown), but you're more likely to spot a lot of store-bought super heroes, a half dozen Dora the Explorers and maybe even a Teletubbie.

These leftover Halloween costumes are usually overpriced and poorly manufactured. Not to mention that they rob you and your kids of a great opportunity to do something fun together.

Here are some inexpensive and simple no-sew Purim costumes that anyone can make with the supplies you probably have lying around your house already. It's easy and it's fun - and no matter how it turns out, you can be proud of your efforts!

Flower Garden

Cut out large flower petals from different colored sheets of posterboard. Using a hot glue gun, attach them to a dime store headband. Then cut out large leaves from green posterboard. Pin them to your child's clothing - preferably green leggings and a green turtleneck. You can dress up all your children as different flowers, and then you or your spouse can go as their gardener. Just don some gardening gloves and work clothes, and carry a watering can. What a cute way to watch your garden grow!

Oreo Cookie

Using black posterboard, cut out two circles large enough to cover the area from your child's shoulders to his or her knees. Dress your child in all white, to represent the filling. Then attach the circles to your child backpack style, with ribbon, twine or lanyard. If you want to dress up your whole family in this theme, try making one a chocolate chip cookie, one a snickerdoodle, etc. Just use different colored paper, glitter, markers, paint or felt to create the decorations. You can even go dressed as their baker, just slip on an apron and a chef's hat, and carry a wooden spoon. What a yummy family!

Ladybug

Dress your child in a black turtleneck and leggings. Cut wing shapes out of red posterboard and then cut small circles (try tracing a glass for the right size) from black posterboard, which you glue onto the wings. Punch two holes at the top of each wing and thread some black twine through them, knotting them over your child's shoulders, backpack style. Then use two black pipe cleaners to make antennae. Either twirl the ends or attach a black or red pom pom to the end. Wrap the unadorned end of the pipe cleaner around a dime store headband and place on your child's head. What a happy little bug!

Paradox/Pair a Docs

This is a great ironic idea for two of your older kids. Suggest that they dress in scrubs, which you can usually borrow if you don't already have at home. Make them a little stethoscope out of pipe cleaners - or raid your younger children's toy box. Just be sure that they stick together as a pair, so when people ask them what they are dressed as, they can answer, in unison: "A Paradox [Pair a docs]!"

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