Halloween has always been one of the best opportunities every year to get together and meet up with family and friends. Whether it's an evening of sweet collecting with the children or a quiet drink with friends, it is always great fun to dress up.

Some simple fancy dress ideas

Even with a great deal of readily available costumes for sale on the internet, it is always great fun making your own and especially if you have kids and they are involved in the making process. First up there is everyone's favourite, the classic white sheet ghost, I admit not greatly original but always nice and easy to make. Children always enjoy dressing up as a ghost and spooking out the neighbours, so an old white sheet with holes for the arms, eyes and mouth and often adding comical facial features with a marker pens works well on kids costumes. Another simple Halloween costume is the mummy, often using gauze bandages or toilet roll and is simply done by wrapping up the selected person. For added effect you can whiten the face and darken the eyes using make-up and also dye the fabric for a more aged look, using a weak mixture of tea.

Witch Costume

Always one of the most popular costumes each Halloween is the witch's costume, often consisting of a long black robe or gown, pointed hat and a broomstick, a good helping of green make-up and a wig always help to make the costume more authentic. But if you are looking for a more modern take on the traditional witch's costume, use bright colours and trendy skirts with a layered look using triangles of netting or crepe paper. Often you can add effect by sewing strips of black lace around the elbows or shoulders and you could also add draping triangles of voile under the arms, stripy colourful stockings is a must for any modern witch.

Count Dracula Costume

Another classic Halloween costume, inspired by the great Bram Stoker novel, it's always good fun and surprisingly easy to do but may require the odd purchase. A black or red cape is an essential for any wannabe Dracula, which you can find in any good fancy dress shop but could just as easily be made using a large piece of cloth or a large black bin bag. Black trousers and a white shirt along with some black, red and white face make-up complete the costume. It is a good idea to paint the face white and darken around the eyes and add red paint for the effect of blood around the mouth and last but not least is the vampire teeth, which probably need to be bought from a fancy dress shop.

Frankenstein Costume

Once again inspired from another literature classic by Mary Shelly, Frankenstein has to be one of the most fun characters to dress up as during Halloween. It is surprisingly easy, firstly you have to find some of the oldest clothes and jacket you can find, plain black colours always work best so use some dark trousers and jacket with a black tee-shirt. Then you can move on to the face paint, apply green make-up to the entire face then add some black around the eyes, it is always a good idea to add some green to the hands as well.

Skeleton Costume

Another relatively simple costume to make is the skeleton, as long as you have some black shoes, black trousers, a black top and some card, it can be made. Firstly you need to draw and cut out the bones from the card, usually this consists of a couple of bones on the front and back of each leg, just use the generic femur or humerus shape and do the same for the arms. Next do a generic pelvis shape for front and back and finally a rib cage shape with the vertebra going down the middle. This can be time consuming but there are various tools that you can use online to help with the process and there are various Halloween costume sites from which you can download templates and cut around. Any skeleton costume worth its salt needs a mask and this can be bought from most costume shops but just as easily made from card, once again templates can be downloaded from the internet. Lastly these need to be applied to the costume with pins, glue or double-sided masking tape. If you have any black gloves, this always helps the authenticity of the costume and using white paint, bones can be drawn onto the gloves. If you prefer, you could paint all of the bones onto the costume and it if you feel adventurous you could use glow in the dark paint, which always spices up the night time trick or treating.

Whether you feel like being creative and making your own costume this Halloween or you feel like purchasing a quality Halloween costume from a retailer it is often a fun idea to dress up as couples or groups. For example a party of you could go as Frankenstein, skeletons, the ghost busters or the three musketeers, the options are almost endless and it is always good fun thinking up ideas with friends and family.