*This DIY Halloween costume story is sponsored by Amazon and Mom It Forward. All opinions expressed below are honest and unbiased, as always.
It’s a cliche for a reason: cats and babies alike would be perfectly happy with just a box.
We’re seasoned vets at this parenting game and yet we heap upon our kids and our pets thing upon thing upon thing. Cat trees, scratching posts, robotic mice and sometimes we even buy stuff for our pets. Boom, tish, tip your waitress, I’ll be here all weekend.
There’s a magical element to a cardboard box and our bright little bundles of joy are hip to this fact from birth. A simple box, the vessel that housed the Instant Pot you just had to order from Amazon, can be darn near anything: a not-so-scary monster, an ice skating rink for LEGO minifigs, or even a pretend Instant Pot in your toddler’s play kitchen.
Think about that kind of power! The brown Amazon Smile box that once housed your newest goodie can shapeshift, transform, and exist without limits. I think that if we pause on that for too long, we may become envious of those square Amazon boxes because unlike too many of us, they aren’t boxed in by anything at all. I know, I know, it’s too early in the morning for that kind of Inception-level brain work.
Halloween is a time we must make one of two decisions: an overpriced store-bought piece of polyester or a creative handmade showstopper. C’mon, you know the right choice but it’s a bit more difficult than a trip to the spooky October pop-up shop in town.
But life without limits, those shapeshifting Amazon boxes, remember?
Here’s what my girls and I did with a big ol’ box:
We turned that once scuffed up shipping box into a fridge stocked full of delicious food. Word.
No other kid will have this costume. It’s as one of a kind as the whacky 10-year-old who will be wearing it.
This is exactly how Halloween was always meant to be enjoyed — with personality, with flair, with handmade adornments only we might see in the dark of Halloween night but were absolutely worth the time to affix. And our boxtume didn’t take too much time or money to construct. We needed the box, duh, and some thought and imagination but we’ve all got some of that hidden away, ready to shine orange against the black of a late October night.
Unlike perfect Pinterest DIY Halloween costumes that will cause you sleepless nights and unneeded anxiety, this stocked Amazon refrigerator boxtume is achingly simple but doesn’t spare the cleverness or the WOW factor. You CAN make this boxtume and it will look awesome. Let’s get started.
Find yourself a box: We recently had a mattress delivered, one of those new-fangled rolled up ones, so we decided to make a nearly full-size fridge using that oversized box but a dorm room style mini-fridge would be totally rad too if a small rectangular box from a recent Amazon order is what you’ve got handy.
Paint: Speaking of having something handy, a half empty quart of grey paint from a recent dining room re-do provided the faux stainless steel sheen on the outside of our refrigerator costume.
Google Image Searches: We filled up our imaginary shopping cart full of food stuffs to stock our fridge. The kids had fun searching, saving, printing and cutting out pictures of milk gallons, bottles of juice, frozen waffles, salad dressing and more to put in the fridge.
This has all been very easy to this point — a box, some paint, some printer ink, arm holes and a round one for my youngest daughter’s head to pop out at the top — so I decided to make things slightly more complex but ultimately more authentic too by fashioning a deli drawer out of some leftover cardboard. This was 100% unnecessary and caused me a small headache but such is my personality to make at least one thing slightly difficult for myself.
My thought, which I believe to be rather clever, is that the good, candy-wielding people of our neighborhood will deposit the Kit Kats, ‘Fun Size’ Snickers bars and Smarties into the deli drawer which can be opened and closed! I know, I’m thinking the same thing: I AM pretty amazing. Also amazing? The radical notion of making radical Halloween costumes out of the Amazon Smile boxes we all have delivered constantly!
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