Halloween: easy budget zombie DIY tutorial

October 31st is that time again... Halloween is being celebrated more and more. Theme parties complete with ominous haunted houses, vague witches and creepy killer clowns. Decorated shopping streets are transformed on Halloween evening into one big horror adventure with lots of candy, broomsticks, murderous dentists and severed heads. At least here, in Scheveningen, it's already ball here with us...

If you want, you can of course buy a ready-made Halloween outfit: Minecraft suits, Scream masks, Dracula capes, The Joker suit... a visit to Bol.com and you know what I mean. Here we have put our own spin on the fancy dress costume. Born out of necessity, now a tradition for years: the award-winning easy budget DIY zombie .

About four years ago I found out that our son could go to school dressed up the next day. Lots of stress! Because if everyone dresses up… Well, you get it, fomo in the making. Luckily I still had a tube and a can of fake blood at home (don't ask) and you have the rest lying around too. Bet? Nowadays they just sell fake blood at every Intertoys or Blokker, or here , no big deal. Please note : it's rubbish, you can't get it out of anything.

Ingredients

This is what you need for one zombie:

• old clothes, a sweater, sweater, pants (which you can throw away after Halloween!)
• roll of bandage + Leukoplast tape or a plaster
• black eye pencil/gel liner
• dark eye shadow, preferably matte dark brown (or something similar)
• tube of fake blood (or red liquid lipstick)
• optional: black nail polish, too light foundation and white powder

How to

1. cut holes and 'tears' in the clothing to make it look like it is old and torn
2. get dressed. Warm enough with leggings or tights and possibly something under the holey sweater
3. make 'blood stains' at the cracks and holes (children enjoy helping with steps 1 and 2). Preferably use fake blood because it dries up. Spray cans of fake blood are also sold, which works perfectly on clothing
4. makeup time! Make the face, neck and hands pale a little too light foundation and white powder
5. tie the bandage around the head and close with a piece of Leukoplast. Stain it with fake blood
6. 'dirty' the bandage, face, neck and hands with a large make-up brush and eye shadow
7. use a smaller makeup brush to darken the eyes all around. Also blend it especially under the eyes if there are large bags under the eyes. Also create grooves along the nose and fan some shadow onto the cheeks with a wider brush
8. draw a tear and stitches with black from one corner of the mouth. Spread some fake blood over that
9. it depends on how much time is left, but sometimes I still draw some veins and cracks
10. paint the nails black

And your zombie is ready! The first time our little one walked down the street like that, the neighbors were shocked. Halloween is now more established and he is a bit older, which makes a difference. Anyway, it's a pleasure every year to make this budget zombie.

Oh yeah, zombies don't laugh of course. Mothers of budget zombies do 😂

And, are you going for it?

Be sure to take photos with the hashtag #happlify and/or #happyzombie. Let us know what your Halloween plans are below. I'm super curious.

The author: Mariko Naber

Branding expert and online entrepreneur Mariko is the happy brain behind Happlify. Together with partner Mark, she runs Happlify, Sell your stuff online and branding agency Loaded ink BNO . She loves feel good, random acts of kindness, meatballs, chocolate mousse, family time, sea, piña colada, sugar & spice and everything nice.