Making Halloween Costumes From Cardboard Boxes

When my eldest son, Brad, was three, I introduced him to the concept of Halloween. Dressing up and candy! Who wouldn’t love that?

“I want to be a tractor,” he announced, fully confident in my abilities as a costume designer.

“A tractor?” I asked incredulously, mentally sorting through our box of dress up clothes.

He grinned and nodded, already anticipating the joy of portraying a piece of heavy equipment. How could I possibly say no?

And, so it began. In October, while other parents were buying ready made costumes or choosing fabric at a well-lit store with piped in music, I found myself scrounging through dumpsters for the perfect cardboard box to transform my kid into an inanimate object.

That first year, I decorated a box to look like a John Deere tractor. I removed the bottom of the box, cut a hole in the top, and painted it bright green with the customary yellow stripe. Black cardboard wheels, suspender style straps, and a cardboard tube for the exhaust pipe completed the project. Dressed in a plaid flannel shirt and a straw hat, my son slipped into the box and was ready to hit the (dirt) road.

Utilizing cardboard and hot glue to craft Halloween costumes became a family tradition. My husband was no fan of the local craft store, but he could wield a box knife with the best of them. We became a team – he the builder of cardboard creations, me the painter. And the boys became confident in their dad’s ability to construct anything. The year Brad asked to be a backhoe – complete with fully-functioning digger arm – we had to rein him in.

Over the years, we worked side by side with the boys to create some one-of-a-kind costumes. Halloween became a month-long holiday as costumes were planned, scrounged, and constructed.

My boys are beyond trick-or-treating age now, but I still find myself eyeballing the recycle bins for good cardboard. Just in case.