Sometimes it’s hard to convince your children to make their own Halloween costumes. Everyone wants to be Elsa, the ice queen from Disney’s hit movie Frozen. The boys admire Captain America or Batman and insist on a store-bought outfit.

Don’t give in. The fun of Halloween is being creative and using your imagination in designing your own costume.

Elsa can be achieved if your daughter has a long blue party dress, and you make a crown out of tinfoil.

Your child can become a lovely pumpkin by re-purposing a cardboard box, painting it orange and designing a face on its front.

The idea of making a homemade costume from items around the house isn’t to save money. It might end up costing you more, especially if you have to buy supplies. The concept around making your own costume is to teach your child that we must stop being a throw-away nation. We can re-purpose items in our houses or in nature without being destructive and design some pretty cute, if not clever, costumes.

Here are five ingenious costume ideas:

Come as Lego:

Take a cardboard box that can fit around your child. Cut a hole for her head. Collect used plastic containers of the same size, like ones for margarine, and paint in the same color. Glue the painted containers to the box. Voila, a piece of Lego.

Rocket man

Become rocket man or a rudimentary version of Ironman without a helmet. Dress your child in a red sweatshirt and red pants. Find a piece of flat cardboard and attach two shoulder straps. Take two used bottles of soda and paint silver.

Out of red and orange construction paper cut flames. Attach to the silver bottles and glue to the cardboard.

You could also convert this into Batman if you child wears all black and you cut out Batman style wings to affix to the bottles. Paint everything silver and put black Batman decals on the wings and bottles.

Minion

This year’s hit kids movie was Minions. Your child will stand out in a crowd if she wears a yellow hoodie sweatshirt with overall jeans and safety goggles for glasses. Or make large glasses with silver round eye pieces from cardboard.

Egg Carton Masks

While you may recycle your cardboard egg cartons, they are a perfect resource for art projects. Every James Bond movie seems to have a masquerade ball scene. Use those cardboard holders as a basis to make a mask.

Keep four egg holders attached and cut out holes in the bottom of two for vision. Cut and mold the other pieces so that they cover the nose and forehead.

Paint the remaining pieces in a colorful design akin to a masquerade ball where attendees try and look like birds or other people, think Phantom of the Opera.

Woodland Fairy

Little girls love to be fairies. Many girls have wings they got at parties or in a dollar store. Reuse them and decorate a flowing skirt or tutu with leaves, pinecones and twigs. Collect as much as you can from the yard and attach with twist ties to the skirt.

Make a wreath for your daughter’s hair using any flowers still blooming in the garden along with leaves and twigs. Don’t forget to make a wand using a fallen tree branch and leaves.