There’s not much in life that I enjoy more than a good craft and challenging myself to sticking to a budget. With Halloween quickly approaching, and Ninja Turtles all the rave, my toddler has requested that he be Leonardo (aka “the blue one” if you ask me). Since recently becoming a family of 4, I took to Pinterest to see how I could make this happen.

I stumbled upon the sweetest blog with crafts, crochet, and crock pot recipes at Repeat Crafter Me where I found mind-blowing Ninja Turtle crochet beanie patterns written in a variety of sizes!

Having found a free pattern, and Halloween sneaking up on me fast I gave myself a $50 budget to gather supplies to costume my family of 4. First, I took cash so that I was more apt to stick to my allotted amount. Next, I headed into town! I stopped at Michael’s after doing a search to find out who had green t-shirts for the best price. Here, I also grabbed a package of felt for the bandanas and faces of the turtles. I also checked prices of their yarn, but it wasn’t on sale. So, from there I headed to Walmart to grab yarn and spray paint (for the shells, more to come on this!). I checked the clearance aisle first where I didn’t have any luck on yarn, but did find spray paint saving me about $2. I picked up 3 skeins of Walmart’s brand of acrylic yarn for the hats. I also checked on the price of roasting pans while there, but they didn’t have the size / shape I was looking for and the size they did have was about $4 per pan. I passed on these, and ventured to my local Dollar Tree where I was able to get 3 roasting pans for $1.25 each! On Pinterest, I saw a photo of a family dressed as Ninja Turtles using spray painted roasting pans as their shells from LeapofFaithCrafting.com and I thought “how brilliant is that?!”

So all in all after visiting 3 stores within about a 2 mile radius of each other, I spent a total of $41 on this year’s Halloween costumes. I cannot wait to get started on these! I think they’re going to be so neat. Best yet, my son will be able to wear his costume to school as he is allowed to wear hats, but not masks. Definitely check back in a couple of weeks to see how these costumes turn out!