Here’s an easy egg carton black cat costume idea for kids.

Where we live Halloween is not huge, but it’s gaining popularity year after year. The kids see it on TV, in the supermarket, and in the department stores. Costumes and bags of chocolates are big business, and little kids don’t really understand that most Australians didn’t grow up with the holiday so they are not very fond of it. While we might see it as commercialism and money-making hype they just want to have fun and eat junk food like the kids on TV.

I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on costumes, but I wanted my kids to be able to celebrate too so I decided to make them a black cat costume each. It cost me a grand total of $2 each for black t-shirts from K-Mart. The rest of the stuff we had already at home.

If you’re a last-minute kind of person (I usually am), you can whip this idea up in a morning so long as you have some drying time to spare for the paint. Here’s how we made it…

How to make an egg carton black cat costume

You will need:

• 2 cups and 2 pointy bits from an egg carton
• 2 pipe cleaners in black or white
• Black and pink acrylic paint
• 2 bobby pins for the ears
• A piece of thin elastic
• Scissors and a hole punch
• A pair of black panty hose and a piece of ribbon for the tail
• Black clothes (a t-shirt & tights or similar)

How To

1. Cut and trim the pieces of egg carton that you’ll be needing.
2.  Snip a piece from the pointy bits so you can see the inside of them to make the ears.
3. Cut a little round nose from the flat part of the egg carton, and trim one of the cups into a cat mouth shape.
4. Paint the pieces black with pink inside the ears, on the nose and on the lips of the mouth. You might need to do a second coat to achieve an opaque look if you are using kids acrylics for painting.
5. Punch two holes in each side of the mouth and thread a pipe cleaner through each side.
6. Punch holes in the sides of the bottom mouth piece and the bottom of the ear pieces.
7. Stick it all together. For the tail braid a pair of black panty hose (we call them stockings) and tie it with a ribbon.

Put it on!

Miss K adored having a tail and kitten nose. She had lots of fun playing pretend baby kitty games for the rest of the afternoon.

Costumes are not just for Halloween. They also encourage pretend, imaginary and dramatic play. Go on, make one!

More ideas you might like:

• Make some bubbling brew for pretend play
• These Salt dough ornaments are fun to make
• Have you seen the printable paper crafts for Halloween available in our shop?

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