Animal Costumes

Animal Costumes

Animal costumes are perhaps the most innocent and innocuous of all costumes. You can be a simple mouse and just wear ears and a tail and paint on some whiskers. Or, you can be an elaborate dinosaur with a full-body suit of scales and horns. Animal costumes are versatile. You can dress them up or down, become a favorite TV or advertisement character, or just be a simple animal.

Animal costumes can also be worn by children and adults alike. Children can have fun playing along with their new identities, and parents and adults can exercise their active imaginations. One can be the cat and one can be the mouse, and you can play-fight; for a newborn or infant, the parent or caretaker can be a kangaroo, and the child can sit in a sling “pouch.” For several children, you can take a cue from animal-centric movies and make jungle creatures, or sea mammals.

And you can be as creative or as simple as you want with animal costumes – that’s the beauty of them. Even just a simple make-up job and a prop or two can evoke a cat or a shark. It is easy to find swathes of animal print and fake fur fabrics at any fabric and crafts store, and it isn’t expensive. You only need the most basic of sewing skills to put together a simple body shell – or, just staple it together! Who’s going to know? The fun you’ll have in your animal costume is more important than the look of the costume itself.

But if you want to go all out, there are plenty of crafting sites, DIY sites, and magazines out there for you to use – and many of the websites are free, created by people who simply love to craft. Every Halloween, you can pick up these magazines, and after the holiday is over, most of the magazines come steeply discounted. Animal costumes always make a fun project for many people to do together, including parents or caretakers and children. They can have fun gluing scales to a fish costume or sprinkling sequins onto a sparkly mermaid, and you have the satisfaction of bonding time with the kids.

There are always animated movies coming out into theatres or released to video. It is easy to follow the trends and pick a project that any child or grownup will be proud of. Give your children a thrill by making them up to be a part of the latest trend in TV or movies! They won’t care if your seams aren’t straight, or their props aren’t exactly to scale – they just want to have fun and be a part of their heroes’ worlds. Or, give your characters their own worlds! A mouse can be a mighty knight of the round table, secret protector of the princess of the castle. Or a lion can be a gentle forest guide for all wayward children. There is hardly a wrong way to create an animal costume!