Corrugated Cardboard Costumes That You Can Make

Halloween is coming up pretty soon. And whether you’re 6 years old or 60, your peers are going to judge your creativity and taste based on the costume you choose to wear.

Of course, you could always buy a costume at a costume shop. That’s a pretty safe choice. But if you want to go for glory, and show off something memorable, you’re going to want to build your own. And what better choice of building materials than corrugated cardboard? It’s readily available, easy to cut and paint, and you don’t need any sewing skills whatsoever to assemble these.

A couple of years ago, we posted a gallery of cardboard costumes. Click here to view it.

This year, we’re updating the gallery with some new hotness. Check out the costumes below and let us know on social media if you’ve made any cardboard costumes of your own. You can find us on Twitter under the @Packsize handle. Send us a tweet with the hashtag #CardboardCostumes!

Rock’em Sock’em Robots

The creator of this costume spent a couple of months putting everything together for this epic costume. That’s a bigger time commitment than most people are willing to make, but it’s hard to argue with the results. You can see the whole creation process (and some of the fun shenanigans the robots got into) here.

Cardboard Superhero Costumes

These costumes were created by Flickr user Nikejerk3 for DragonCon a few years ago. The set includes a great mix of Marvel heroes and villains with an impressive amount of detail. Once again, the construction time and painting skills needed to create a costume like this might be a bit large for the casual costumer. Maybe you could ask Nikejerk3 if he’s willing to make a hero for you?

Wilson

If the first two costumes here are bit too much work, you might try dressing up as Wilson from Home Improvement. This costume can be made from actual wood, but cutting out a cardboard shape would be so much easier. Chances are you have a flannel shirt and bucket hat lying around the house, so this is a really easy costume to put together in a pinch.

A Generic Robot

This one’s also relatively easy: spray paint a couple of boxes silver, cut out some arm holes, attach some buttons and flex ducting, and you’re set! This makes a great costume for kids and gives them a great opportunity for creativity when they decorate the boxes with panels and buttons.

Lego Minifigures

Great for groups; Lego minifigures are a really creative costume. The great thing about this costume is that it can be made really quick and easy and it’ll stand out at a party. Unless someone shows up at the party with the same idea, and has spent a lot more time on their costume than you. Then you get an awkward moment like the photo above.

Refrigerator

These next three costumes were all made by a woman who worked for a box factory (original post here). I love the creativity on these. This costume appears to have actual pizza rolls inside the freezer, as well as an art project and coupon on the refrigerator door. That’s commitment to realism.

Rubik’s Cube

This clever costume has 1/3 the functionality of an actual Rubik’s cube, which is still pretty impressive. It looks like the main components of this cardboard costume are three boxes, some paint, and lots of electrical tape.

Popcorn

I wonder if this kid ever got tired of not having arms on Halloween? Anyway, that’s actual popcorn on the top of the costume, which is pretty awesome.

Armor

This is a pretty broad category, but there’s actually quite a bit of help you can find online for this one. Thanks to the LARP community, all you have to do is Google “how to make cardboard armor” to find patterns, instructional videos, blogs, and painting tips on how to make almost any type of armor. Once painted, the armor can look pretty convincing.

If you have a Packsize machine at your facility, cutting boxes for most of these costumes is a snap. See, creating your own packaging instead of buying it can have some fairly surprising applications!

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