My FIVE Favorite Past Halloween Costumes - DIY & Couple Costume Inspiration!

It is no secret that Halloween is my favorite holiday! Autumn is my favorite season, October is my favorite month, and Halloween is my absolute favorite day of the year. I love everything about it: scary stories, dressing up in costumes, and of course candy! I have a lot of fun ideas for Halloween posts this month that I am super excited to share. For now, let's take a look down memory lane at some of my favorite costumes I've ever worn for Halloween...

If you can believe it, all of the costumes I'm showing you today are from the past two years! I'm a big believer in having multiple Halloween costumes every year, one for each event you attend! Almost all of these costumes are couple costumes, but they are also costumes that work fine individually. Since I am anti-store bought costumes, every single costume is DIY and I'll give a few details on how I did them. These aren't the best quality pictures since they're from before I had a blog and taking quality pictures on Halloween isn't my number 1 priority, but they're decent enough. Hope you enjoy!

Halloween 2015 #1: Taylor Swift, Blank Space

This costume was so fun for me! Anyone who knows me knows that I am the biggest Taylor Swift fan. When the Blank Space music video came out, I knew I had to make a costume out of it. I also had to incorporate the guy in the music video into these costumes. Here's some tips on how I did it:

• For the Taylor Swift costume, I wanted something reminiscent of the black lingerie she wears in the video. I found a black lace romper on Amazon and paired it with a sheer black scarf over my shoulders. She wears a black lace sleeping mask over her curly hair, but I got the same look with a black crochet headband I found at Walmart. Make sure to complete the look with wavy black mascara tear lines and Taylor's signature red lip and winged eyeliner.
• For the guy's costume, there was a few directions I could go. The obvious is to cut holes in a dress shirt Regina George style, but I wanted something a little more toned down. I found a dress shirt and tie for cheap at a thrift store and cut them up as if he had been attacked by a knife. Add some fake blood and the look is complete. Make sure to dress up the look with dress pants, dress shoes, and fancy hair.

 

Halloween 2015 #2: Cruella De Vil

This was a fun costume. I really wanted to play around with black and white hair and Disney villain makeup, which is why I decided on this costume. I won't be talking about the Zombie costume on this one, but I will touch on it for one of the costumes below.

• There is lots of leeway in a Cruella de Vil costume. You could go live action or animated, spots or no spots, pop of red or monochromatic. In my opinion, as long as you have black and white spots and some element of (faux) fur, you're good to go. I wore a black fur dress from Forever 21 and a black and white spotted coat from a thrift store. For my hair, I curled it and sprayed half of it black and half of it white. The temporary hair color spray is kind of the worst, so you might want to go for a wig. For my makeup, I watched a ton of YouTube tutorials and combined different techniques. I went for Cruella's signature blue eye and that dramatic Disney villain eyeliner and round, black eyebrows. Of course, no look is complete without red lipstick.

Halloween 2014 #1: Circus Performers

This is one of my all time favorite Halloween costumes I've ever done, and I came up with the idea and put it all together completely last minute! These costumes involve a little more craftiness than the rest, but trust me, they're still super easy and so worth the extra effort!

• For the Circus Acrobat costume, I started with a simple black leotard. I actually find mine in the girl's section of Walmart... don't ask me how I was able to fit into it! While at Walmart, I also picked up sparkly red fabric, gold ribbon, and gold glitter tulle. I cut the red fabric into a fringe and hot glued it to the front of the leotard, adding the gold ribbon over it. I then hot glued the gold tulle to the butt of the leotard, for a showgirl style look. I found my feather head piece at a Halloween store, it was supposed to be for a flapper costume. Fishnet tights were necessary for this look and also made me a little more comfortable with wearing a leotard. For my makeup, I researched vintage circus performer makeup and did some triangles under my eyes and dramatic winged eyeliner. Of course, I finish all my costumes with red lipstick!
• For the Circus Ring Leader costume, I started with a red blazer I found in the women's section of a thrift store. I cut it a bit into the shape I wanted and added gold ribbon to the trim of the coat. I made an oversized gold bow tie from some gold fabric and bought a black top hat from a Halloween store. Pair these items with a white dress shirt and black pants, and you have a Circus Ringleader.  

Halloween 2014 #2: Grandparents/Old Couple

Everyone used to joke that Noah and I were just like an old couple, so we decided to embrace it for this costume! Sorry about the super low quality picture, it's the only one I could find!

• For an old person costume, there are just a few basics to stick with: outdated thrift store clothes, glasses, and grey hair. Since we both had very unique styles, a lot of these clothing items were already in our closets. Go for clothing with obnoxious floral prints, ugly patterns, crochet and lace details, and an oversized fit. Buy some grey temporary hair spray and make sure your hair is grey! We also filled our eyebrows in with grey eye shadow and did some old age theater makeup. I, of course, had to go with a bold orange lip color in true grandma fashion! 

Halloween 2014 #3: Sugar Skull & Zombie

These were such fun costumes for both of us. This wasn't planned as a couple costume, we each did our own thing, but they ended up going together really well. I liked to call the combination "Day of the Walking Dead."

• For the Sugar Skull costume, the main focus is the skull makeup. This is a tricky costume if you're not at least a little bit skilled with makeup. For me personally, I looked up a lot of pictures and videos for inspiration. I decided to go with a half skull/half glam look as I love the contrast. I used eyeliner and eye shadow for the designs. For the outfit, you can go a lot of different directions. I went with a black lace dress for a spooky, vintage vibe. I would recommend wearing a flower crown too, I was going to but forgot it at last minute, but it would really complete the look!
• For the Zombie costume, it is best to have some experience with makeup as well. We learned how to do stage makeup from our theater teacher, but you could also look up some tutorials online. The secret with zombie makeup is having a lot of texture and realistic fake blood. Wearing tattered and bloody clothing really completes the look.

I hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane, I know I did! These are my top five favorite costumes that I've ever done, and I feel like I'm constantly chasing the high of having so many amazing costumes in only two years. Noah was really fun to do Halloween costumes with, he had a deep appreciation for Halloween just like me and put up with a lot of silly costumes the past few years!

This year, I have three different costumes up my sleeve. Two of them will be individual costumes and one will be a group costume. So exciting! I'm not sure if I'll have them up before Halloween, most likely they will end up on here the week after Halloween. October is the most fun, busy month for me, and I'm really looking forward to it! Hopefully I can get all of the blog post ideas I have in my head out into the world!

If you have any Halloween themed requests, costume ideas or DIYs maybe, let me know in the comments below! I would be so happy to help any of you out!

Which one of my past costumes is your favorite? Let me know in the comments!

Thank you for reading!

-Rebecca