Halloween is less than a week away, and like most kids in America its all Evie and Mack want to talk about.  How many more days until Halloween?  What are you going to be for Halloween? Can we play trick-or-treat in the toy room?

Like most things in my life, I like to give a homemade spin to Halloween.  Americans spend nearly $3 billion every year on Halloween costumes, but its more fun for my family to make do with what we have around the house.  When I was growing up, I don’t think my parents ever bought us a Halloween costume.  We went to resale shops or scrounged through closets or happily accepted hand-me-downs.  Maybe when the kids are older they will be pickier, but for now they are just delighted to play dress-up.

Evie wants to be “a good witch with no green face”, so she’s wearing a dress she wore for my sister’s wedding, fancy shoes and a $3 witch hat from Target.  Vivian will wear the same bumble bee costume Evie and Mack wore for their first Halloweens.  For two weeks in September my dear Mack debated between a lion and a robot. The robot won.

So, he and I got to work.  With nothing more than some aluminum foil and Elmer’s glue, we re-purposed two boxes so Mack could be the “whoa-bot” of his dreams.

First, we cut out circles for his arms:

Then, we glued foil to the exterior and added some paper “buttons” Mack loves pushing.

Finally, Mack and I gave the robot some antennae with foil-wrapped drinking straws stuck to the helmet. The whole project took less than two hours, but I really enjoyed working on it with my little fella.

The kids and I went to a Halloween party with my mom tonight, so they had a chance to test drive their costumes before the big day next week.  Mack kept the robot on for a grand total of 49 seconds.  But, I still think it was well worth the time!

P.S. The best part about Mack’s whoa-bot costume?  It can be recycled!