We always say “our family is a circus!” So the idea for these costumes came to us on a particularly crazy but normal day in our house. We quickly decided on a strong man for my husband, lion tamer with lion cub for myself and infant daughter, tightrope walker for my oldest daughter and of course no circus is complete without a clown (which our middle daughter totally is!) I believe in homemade costumes every year but I ordered bits and pieces to make it easier (because with a family of 5 it took a long time to get all the details right for these costumes!) The strong man suit was purchased but we made the barbell out of styrofoam balls and PVC pipe.
The lion costume was store bought but we created the entire lion cage out of cardboard, PVC pipe and spray paint and created a frame to fit over our red wagon – this was definitely the most memorable part of the costume and our neighborhood went crazy “oohing and ahing” over the lion cage, many people stopped us to take pictures! I embellished a jacket for the lion tamer and make the flame hoop out of an old hula hoop and felt!
My daughters tightrope walker costume was an old dance costume that we added feathers to and I made her a matching headpiece. The clown costume was pieced together from a colorful tutu, printed leggings and I sewed the huge buttons to the front of a leotard. We also made her clown hat and huge hair bows and had fun painting her face!
We had a blast being the circus, we even played the classic circus theme song from a mini speaker as we trick-or-treated from house to house with our circus wagon wobbling down the street. I’ll never forget that memory – this theme really summed our family!
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