Halloween is a time of year when the kid in all of us comes out to play. This time, start a family tradition that’s simple and easy for trick-or-treaters, both young and old alike, by creating a homemade costume.

Some of the best ideas are inspired by the smallest things. Here are a few creations worn by our staff members and their children.

Inspiration in the cards

Begin with a simple deck of cards for inspiration in finding the right costume match. For instance, there’s the Joker, the Ace of Spades, the King of Hearts and the Jack. There’s no limit to the size of a family either. Whether it is a full house, three of a kind, two of a kind, a royal flush, or lucky sevens, there’s a winning combination for the entire family.

Queen of Hearts is a classic costume for the younger crowd, dressed with a simple heart necklace and yellow cloth crown to match her majesty, or combine this homemade costume with a pair of high heels and a red mini skirt creating a more mature costume for an adult trick-or-treater.

With help of a copy store, playing cards can be photocopied, enlarged and laminated to the card shark’s liking for a costume that’s light-weight for trick-or-treating and costume contests, too.

Materials:

Deck of cards

Thin red or black ribbon (old Christmas ribbon will do)

Hole puncher

Red sweat shirt and pants (*can be shorts and t-shirt)

Yellow or red cloth for crown

Hot glue and glue gun (use only under adult supervision)

One black or red gift bag

Make a photocopy of the playing card you want to make, and enlarge accordingly. A baby King of Hearts would need an eight-by-10 card. Laminate for longevity or save costs on the printing, by drawing the card on poster board.

Punch holes in both cards near the neckline, and round out edges of card by trimming with scissors.

Thread ribbons through each side of large playing card to hold on shoulders, and secure by tying a bow over each shoulder.

Wear this playing card over a sweat suit or T-shirt and shorts.

Top off costume with yellow cloth hat, or red hat depending on the card.

Create a cool matching treat bag by gluing some remaining playing cards onto a black or red paper gift bag for a coordinated Halloween creation.

Spooky ideas in Harry Potter series

In searching for a Halloween costume for that special character in your family, look no further than the Harry Potter series. J.K. Rowlings’ never-ending imagination is a true compliment to creating any homemade costume. A Harry Potter costume is a practical and low-cost costume. Start with fabrics from black satin robes in the house, to old graduation robes cut to fit the size of your little trick-or-treater.

Materials:

Old silky black robe or old graduation robe cut to size

Red and yellow cotton or recycled fabric from thrift store for scarf

Needle and thread

Fabric scissors

Old ruler or black fimo clay to form into wand (fimo can be found at craft stores)

Black spray paint

Old wire frame glasses with glass popped out from thrift shop, or black plastic glasses from store.

Jelly beans (optional)

Broom (optional)

Directions:

Cut the black robe to size, and hem the bottom of Harry’s cape. For the scarf, sew the yellow and red fabric so it’s alternating in colors. Cut to size with fabric scissors to fit your trick-or-treater.

Spray paint the old ruler for a simple wand, or mold and form a wand and bake it in the oven with fimo clay from the craft store.

Top this costume off with a pair of old wire frame glasses, a bag of mixed jelly beans for sampling trick-or-treaters to try a taste of Berti Bott’s Every Flavored Beans.

Ride a broom for a costume contest, or leave the broom at home to trick or treat.

Go to coolest-homemade-costumes.com/harry-potter-costume.html for more ideas and for Hogwart’s entire cast of characters, too.

A berry special costume:

Younger children (2 years old and younger) are sometimes tricky to squeeze into the right costume. But there’s a berry special handmade costume, found at www.parenting.com, which is a sweet idea, especially when there’s no sewing involved.

Materials:

Green felt

Scissors

Black marker

Very roomy red body suit

Green hat

Socks for stuffing

Directions:

Cut out six leaf shapes from felt and glue to top of green hat.

Draw strawberry seeds on bodysuit with marker.

Stuff socks in bodysuit and hat.

Dress your little one in red pants to finish this sweet homemade costume.

Combine your strawberry with an “on the farm theme” for the entire family. Pair her up with parents dressed in overalls and plaid shirts, and siblings dressed as cows. Cows can be created simply by hot-gluing small free-formed cut out shapes of black felt to a white onesie or white T-shirt’s for a creative family farm. More family farm creations can be found at www.parents.com

Fun inspiration in balloon creations

Drawstring costumes are another option in homemade creations, and with a little, or a lot of newspapers stuffed inside their costume, trick-or-treaters can expand their Halloween wastes to transform into a large bunch of balloon grapes or a pink balloon bubble bath.

Materials:

Large sheet or cloth twice the size of the trick-or-treater

Elastic drawstrings

Sealing tape (to secure the bottom of drawstring bag if needed)

Magic hemming tape, or needle and thread

30 pink round balloons for a pink bubble bath costume and one barrette or 30 purple round balloons for a bunch of grapes

One yard green felt and two to three yards French wired ribbon

30 safety pins

Match tights to colors of balloons — leotard for girls, large sweatshirt for boys and shorts.

Directions:

With long piece of cloth or sheet, cut a long strip of the cloth, twice the width of the person who will wear the costume. Measure from elbow to elbow. And make sure the fabric is as long as the wearer’s height from shoulders to knees.

With right sides together sew the two short ends together for the center back of the seam. Sew casings at the bottom of the costume. Bring elastic drawstrings through these casings, leaving the ends exposed.

Have trick-or-treater try the costume on. Mark and cut a vertical slit on each side of the costume for the armholes.

Turn these raw edges under, and stitch in place, or use magic hemming tape to hold the raw edge.

Put the bag on, and cinch up the bottom of the drawstring.

Stuff with wadded up newspaper or balloons until costume is round and full.

For grape costume Inflate and tie the ends of purple round balloons. Attach the tips to the sweat shirt or leotard with safety pins. Place more balloons at the shoulders and taper down into a V-shaped pattern. Create a green hat to top off this costume with green felt, and complete the grape creation with a twisted wire ribbon for curly vine.

For bubble bath costume, this creation is more rounded in shape, while adding three small pink balloons to a barrette on the top of her head for this pink Halloween party suit.

A hole-in-one treat

Your trick-or-treaters are dressed and ready to play. So set up a pumpkin putt-putt golf course for them in your living room, or on the front porch. Pumpkins can be real for this haunted version of miniature golf, or they can be created with Funkin’s pumpkins to be reused every year at Halloween.

Pumpkins can be numbered with flags, for serious putters who want to keep score, or randomly placed for practice putts as trick-or-treaters arrive for their treats.

Materials:

Several medium and large pumpkins or Funkin’s found at craft stores or at www.funkins.com

Carving kit for carving pumpkins, or acrylic paints for painting faces on pumpkins

Golf clubs, preferably putters

Golf balls

Four yards of green fleece

Directions:

Cut out the top of the pumpkin, carve and hollow out the inside to remove seeds.

Carve the faces of each pumpkin with the mouths of the pumpkins flush to the floor so the golf ball can roll in easily.

Alternate sizes of mouths to vary the difficulty of this game, and set the pumpkins up over the green fleece for a quick putting green.

You can make a par for this course, with score cards for each player, or use only one pumpkin and score the same way with the lowest score as the winner.

Another option is assigning higher point values to the difficulty of pumpkin’s mouth. The highest total score is the winner.

These cinch bag costumes and pumpkin putt-putt golf ideas were found with other unique ideas in “Holiday Fun Year-Round” with Dian Thomas, and can be found at most Collier County libraries.

Head over to the Haunted House at East Naples Branch Library

Looking for a place to show off your homemade costume? The East Naples Library offers a Haunted House to trick-or-treaters and their families from 3 to 4:30 p.m. on Oct. 31. For more information on this spooktacular event, call 775-5592.

Happy homemade haunting!