Looking for a group family costume idea that’s cute, original, and fun? Here are the ideas I’ve done with my kids for Purim over the last 5 years. They are perfect for a variety of ages and are easy and low cost to pull off. Feel free to use these ideas directly or just pull the bits and pieces you like and add your own twist!
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1) Toys Themed Group Costume
My son was only a few months old this year and I had very little energy to handcraft a bunch of costumes. So we went store bought that year and I just pulled a teddy bear hat out of my photography prop stash to turn my baby into a cute little brown bear.
You can use this as a springboard and come up with any other variety of toys that your kids want to be, or you can simply go full on Toy Story and use different characters from the movies.
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2) Road trip themed group costume
What’s harder than taking a road trip with a bunch of little kids?? Incorporate this fun idea into a themed group costume complete with google maps, some road signs, a gas station attendant and a mom and dad who’ve had enough.
For the gas station attendant costume I simply printed out the Mobil logo on photo paper and glued it onto pieces of felt, which I then attached to my son’s cap and shirt, and I made a gas pump out of a spray painted foam tube (you can use a piece of pool noodle) attached to a toy that had a handle. The stop sign was made using red and white felt. For my toddler, I knew his costume had to not feel like a costume, otherwise he wouldn’t have worn it- so I found a cute t-shirt with a speed sign on it (however one can easily be made by hand as well).
The google maps for my daughter was also very easy- plain t shirt with colored duct tape as the roads, and a paper hat for the destination symbol. As for me and my husband, its pretty self explanatory 🙂 . P.S. This post in no way condones drinking and driving.
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3) Weather themed group costume
This was a fun one! You’ll need to stock up on lots of cotton batting though. Make a tornado costume by gluing toy animals, people, cars and some twigs to a funnel shaped mass of cotton batting. (Can be found in any art supply store). I applied a thin coat of gray spray paint before gluing the toys down with hot glue gun. I attached the funnel to an old black shirt, and made a smaller grey cloud by gluing more cotton onto a plain black winter hat and then added a felt lightning shape.
The rainbow costume was a little more involved, but wasn’t too difficult. I cut the different colors of felt into progressively smaller rainbow shapes and glued them all onto a red t shirt. To make the clouds, cut white felt into 4 identical cloud shapes, then sew two of them together and stuff with cotton before you finish sewing them up. Glue onto the ends of the rainbow. To make the rain cloud costume, create a large cloud shape out of a thick paper or oaktag. Glue on clumps of cotton. Cut raindrop shapes out of sparkly blue oaktag, and punch a small hole on the top of each one using a sharp knife or pointy scissors. Tie some clear string into each hole and hang from the cloud and a tutu skirt. (You can also simply glue the rain drops on, however then they won’t dangle and sway with movement which adds a great effect). I glued more white cotton fluff onto a plain headband for the finishing touch.
For the weather reporter costume all you need is a poncho, a microphone, rain boots, and print out the weather channel logo onto photo paper to make the labels. (I actually just typed it out in photoshop, made the background blue, and printed it out).
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4) Marathon Runner themed costume
This was super super easy and so cute! The only things I made were the marathon runner tags, and it is simple to do in photoshop or any word processing program. Just print a paper with names, or just numbers, in large text. Have everyone wear sweatbands, sneakers, athletic shirts, and I found toy medals in the 99 cents store. Easy, fun, and original!
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5) Ice Cream Themed Group Costume
Who doesn’t love ice cream? Create an ice cream theme for you family costume by gluing felt sprinkle shapes onto white tutus and t shirts. Make ice cream cone headbands by first cutting a circle out of some cone colored scrapbook paper, then draw the waffle lines on in marker and twist the paper into a cone shape. Glue some cotton stuffing onto a plain headband, and then attach the cone upside down to the cotton. For the ice cream server costumes, use an old shoe box lid as a tray and glue thick ribbon on the sides to make a strap. Extra ice cream cones can be made out of paper, and I found the server hats on amazon. Red bow ties completed the look- those can be easily found on amazon or etsy or you can just make them out of felt and fasten to a white shirt with safety pins.
Whether you use these ideas for Purim or Halloween, I hope these group costume ideas help you out in some way!