By Madeleine Nesbitt

Halloween costume options these days range from Sexy Hamburger to Sexy Lorax to Sexy Jane Doe Body Bag. There isn’t a single option that isn’t covered—unless you don’t want a sexualized costume. If you aren’t the Sexy [Insert noun here] type, there’s a huge chance that you will not be able to find a store-bought costume that suits you. Most of the costume options out there for women are sexed-up some-things (worst costume idea ever goes to Sexy Corn), and not all women or teens actually want to wear sexualized costumes.

Are you one of these women? Never fear! SPARK is here with some creative costumes that are easy to put together and do not start with “sexy”.

Bag of Jelly Beans
To become a bag of jelly beans, you will need an array of rainbow-colored balloons, a clear, garbage-bag-sized bag, a piece of ribbon long enough to wrap loosely around your neck and tie in a bow, a print-out of the logo of your jelly bean brand of choice (this is optional), and a pair of scissors. First, blow up enough balloons to fill in the bag around your body. Then, cut two holes in the bottom of the clear bag that fit pretty tightly around your legs, because you don’t want the balloons to fall out. Cut two arm holes as well.  At this time, if you have printed out a jelly bean brand label, you should tape it (glue usually doesn’t work very well on plastic bags) onto the front of the clear bag. Step into the bag through the leg holes, then put in the balloons and pull the bag up to your neck. You will need someone to tie the ribbon around your neck, over the top of the plastic bag, while you hold up the bag full of balloons. Voila! You are now a bag of jelly beans.

Spelling Bee
For this costume, you will need black pants, a black shirt you are willing to hot glue/tape things onto, hot glue and a hot glue gun or masking tape, regular glue, 1 strip of yellow felt or paper about five inches wide that is long enough to wrap around your middle, two white plastic grocery bags, letter stickers or cut-outs and two wire hangers. I’m going to let RealSimple.com do the talking when it comes to the construction of wings, because I have no experience in making wings:

How To: Make Wings:

Take two hangers and mold into the shape of wings. Cover the wings with the plastic bags. Secure around the edges with [regular] glue.

Now, for the rest of the costume. For the shirt, put a flat piece of cardboard between the two layers of the black shirt, so that the hot glue doesn’t go through (this is not necessary if you’re taping). Heat up the hot glue gun, and position the felt or paper in your bee-stripe place of choice on the black shirt. Glue the first half of the strip onto the black shirt, then glue the other half onto the back so that you have one yellow stripe going all the way around the shirt. It’s the same process with the masking tape/felt, except you’re using tape, not glue. After gluing/ taping the felt on, you can take your letters and attach them to your top and pants. You can make words or do jumbled letters. That’s it! Put on your shirt, pants, and wings, and you will be ready for a spell-off, a pollination party, or a night of trick-or-treating.

Be Your Own Superheroine
This is probably the easiest of the costumes here: think of an idea for your own superheroine!  Create a theme, and make an outfit on it.  This is great because your superheroine’s look can center around items that you have on hand in your closet. One of our SPARK girls had a superhero day for her homecoming spirit week and went as a feminist superheroine of her own making– see?  You can be whatever you want to be with this one, so good luck!  Right now my personalized superheroine would be Miss Caffeine– complete with mug of tea and hyperactive twitchiness.

Art
Art is a great inspiration for Halloween. You could frame yourself and become a famous work of art such as the Mona Lisa or Girl With A Pearl Earring, or you could embody the aesthetics of various artists, as these girls did with Roy Lichtenstein, Pablo Picasso, and Andy Warhol. For the frame-your-face costume, you could create a frame by wrapping a frame-shaped piece of cardboard in gold or silver fabric and glue on a felt or paper background onto three sides of the frame, so that you could stick your head through the unglued side. Then you could use make-up or do your hair up like the person featured in the painting, and wear an outfit matching the one in painting, so that you become Real Live Art! Embodying an artist’s aesthetic would be more difficult, as it involves painting yourself, but the outfits would be pretty easy to put together if you could figure out the paint. Also, you can be an artist—my favourite is this costume for Frida Kahlo.

Clashing Classics
So maybe you don’t have time to pain yourself pink, and you’re looking for something to do with the old zombie/vampire/cat/witch costumes you have tucked away in your basement.  The classic Halloween costumes are always fun, and maybe you just want to revisit one of them for nostalgic reasons.  However, if you’ve got a bunch of old costumes, why not mix it up?  Put on your zombie mask with your pointy witch hat and wrap toilet paper around yourself and you’ve got a Zomwitchmummy, or wear a cat-ear headband and cat tail with Frankenstein neck studs and become Frankencat.

Hopefully, if you’re not up to being a Sexy Lime Wedge this Halloween, this DIY has given you some ideas for costumes.  For even more ideas, check out these links:

Eleven Ideas for Awesome Halloween Costumes
Dark Angels and Technicolor Dreams: How to dress like a Tim Burton character
Green Halloween Costumes 2012: Easy, Free DIY Ideas For Kids And Adults
Hallowmeme