Halloween is one of my family's very favorite holidays! I am not sure who enjoys it more, the adults or kids! This fun holiday brings out the kid in all of I guess. And lots of candy.

Every year I anticipate making the kids' costumes. I truly love and enjoy making them. With fall being such a busy time for our family, with sports and school, I am usually cramming last minute costumes. So this year, I decided to not only get ahead of the game, but to design costumes that are super easy to make! Each costume was made in about an hour. But more importantly, they were easy to make.

My first piece of advice is go for impact. A tutu does just this! They can easily be assembled in minutes and add a punch to just about any girl's costume. My daughter wants to be a witch this year, but I just didn't feel like making a whole elaborate dress. Black shirt from her dresser, a pair of striped leggings, and boots from her closet. All she needs is a dramatic tutu.

To make, simply fit a piece of elastic around child's waist and sew closed. Using a rotary cutter on cutting mat, cut strips of tulle twice the desired length and about six inches wide. Fold a piece in half and pull up behind elastic. Pull the two tails up, in front of elastic, and pull through loop at top. Pull outward and build your layers around the entire elastic until you are happy with the results.

I picked up a $2 witch hat from Target, but wanted to dress it up a little. Using the circles template, I cut out circles of colorful felt, cut a swirl from the outside to the center, and rolled up starting from the outer edge. I hot-glued them together and around the hat. Very quick and easy!

My next piece of advice is not to start from scratch. Just embellish pre-made clothing! You'll save yourself a lot of time and stress and get right to the fun part. This adorable owl costume is simply a brown shirt with rows of fabric ovals sewn beginning at the bottom. I traced a bunch of ovals and then cut them out during my daughter's softball practice.

The hat is a store-bought knit cap that I turned inside-out, cut off a semi-circle from the top, and sewed back together forming an owl shape. Circles and a triangle glued to the hat complete the cute face.

Since the kids go to lots of Halloween parties and even wear their costumes to school, I figured why stop at once costume since they were coming together so quickly! That just means more adorable fall photos to fill up my scrapbooks.

This shark costume follows my previous advice, embellish something pre-made. A gray sweat suit is quickly transformed into a vicious (okay, adorable) shark in minutes. Sew on white felt to the chest, sew jagged teeth around the hood (I used stiffened felt sheets from the store to give them structure), black felt eyes, and of course a fin sewn to the back. I, again, used stiffened felt for this step. Sew together two fins leaving a seam allowance to spread and sew down the back of sweat shirt.

For my daughter's other costume, I went back to my favorite embellishing technique ever, ruffled strips. Using the rotary cutter on a mat, cut strips of black tee and hand sew a long running stitch, pull to ruffle, pin to shirt, and machine sew.

A simple set of antennae is made by drilling two holes in a black headband using the craft drill, feeding a yellow and black pipe cleaner through each side, twist, and sticking into foam balls painted yellow.

The only problem with getting my costumes done so early this year, I seriously think I'm going to make more. I have created a monster. Oh well, I'm enjoying every minute of the madness!