Bandits: Family Costume Idea

I am a die-hard for family costumes!!! I can’t get enough! But the thing is – my kiddos aren’t always on board, cause they want to choose their own costume and all that crazy talk 😉 SOOOO – what works for our family is to do both. The kiddos can pick their costume for school, trick-or-treating, etc, but then we will do a family costume for family events (like a family fall party at church, that sort of thing). It’s a win-win, and it’s what’s been working for us. BUT, it means double costumes – so for sure I am ALL about EASY costumes. And I’ve got a great one for you that I’ve been saving since last year (because of course I didn’t pull it together until the day-of halloween, so I didn’t have time to blog about it then) – – Bandits: Family Costume Idea !!

What would you call us? Bandits? Robbers? Either way, I’ve got a pinnable image for you to save the idea – –

Bandits: Family Costume Idea

Since I was working last-minute on these, I don’t have a step-by-step tutorial, but I can walk you through it! It’s way easy to pull together! You’ll need:

—Black Stocking Hats and Black Gloves – I picked up a bunch at The Dollar Store. I think they didn’t have enough hats, so I got some at Target or Walmart (or both?)

–Black jeans/leggings/pants – we all had black pants of some sort on hand (yes, mine are pleather?! I got them at Walmart for $1 years ago and I always bust them out at Halloween)

–Black shoes – again, we all had some on hand

—Striped shirts – this was the hardest part, mostly cause I couldn’t find them in kids’ sizes – – so I bought all of them (except for Trevor’s) in the Women’s dept at walmart (I think they were $6 each?) and just took in the sides for the girls to make theirs smaller. For my oldest boy, I bought a women’s xl and cut it apart and sewed it into a shirt for him that wasn’t women’s cut (so more boxy like a boys shirt). Trevor was against wearing a women’s shirt (what?!), so luckily we found a super similar stripe on a sweater, I can’t remember where, I think GAP? It was on sale for maybe $20, but I splurged and got it.

–Masks – this was the only thing I actually had to craft, and I kept it really simple. I just cut a mask shape out of black felt and then sewed a piece of elastic to the felt that wraps all the wall around the back of the head. You can’t see the elastic or the sewing part because it’s under the hat, so it doesn’t need to be fancy. I sewed them as we were walking out the door to the Halloween party!

DIY Money Bag

Oh, and I did craft the trick-or-treat bags to match the costume, and I love that extra touch – they’re made to look like money bags! I just used blank tote bags and some heat transfer vinyl and voila, done!

Police Officer Costume

My youngest kiddos played the part of police officer well! I like how it added the perfect touch to our group costume. For his :

–he had the blue pants and shirt (church clothes) and black shoes

— police dress-up kit for $1 at the Dollar Store, which came with a plastic gun and badge and handcuffs.

–Aviator Sunglass, $1 at the dollar store

–the hat was in our dress-up box

I love how most of it was things that we already had on hand, and even though I had to buy the stripe shirts, they can just be for everyday wear, so it’s not a waste.

I think this is a great costume idea for when it’s chilly too – cause it comes with hat and gloves!