Here are 5 cheap dance costume ideas you can make by hand:

Note these are not for state presentations:

1.  Tap dancer - Supplies: Nylons, A mans dress shirt, a pair of sturdy shorts, tie, bowler hat, suspenders - A white shirt is dyeable and should dyed to match the shorts and tucked into the shorts, when worn. Remove the sleeves for a cooler effect. Add glitter or fabric paint to the tie, if you want.

2.  A Chorus line Dancer - Supplies: Gold leotard, tuxedo jacket with tails (can find at thrift/used stores), glitter, medium wide belt, cane, top hat, gold spray paint, glue - use the gold spraypaint to color the jacket and top hat. Be sure not to use too much paint as the jacket willb e too stiff to wear. Use the glitter on the lapels and cuffs, and band of the top hat, if there are any. Lay a light coating of clue on the belt and cover in glitter.

3.  Ballerina 1  - Child - Supplies: tulle, leotard, tights, glitter or beading - Leotards are notoriously easy to sew things onto. Sew the tulle in a tight band around the middle of the leotard. Start have an inch above the bottom line of leg opening and sew a total of three bands close togehter working upwards. Each band should be no more than 1-2 millimeters apart from eachother. Add more bands for thickness as desired.

4. Ballerina 2 - Adult - Supplies : leotard, tights, tullel ribbon - Easily put together a ballerina dress by gathering the ends of tulle together with ribbon through a thick needle. The tulle can be layered for thicker dance skirts. The belt is the ribbon which is already sewn into the tulle.

5. Belly Dancer - Supplies -  large gold round coin sequins (hobby/craft store), heavy duty swimsuit bikini bottoms, different colored nylon sheer fabric (curtain fabric works ), Sheer handkerchiefs /or smaller bolts of fabric Heavy duty bra, beading, - One to two large pieces of fabric should be sewn into the top of the bikini bottoms front area. Do the same with the back. Sew the gold coin sequins over the fabric around the belt area of the bikini bottoms. Save extra sequins for the bra. Gold coins and handkerchiefs can be sewn around the cup of the bra. Tip: its best to use black for both bikini bottoms and bra.

I hope these costume ideas help with your next party, fantasy or Halloween!

If you'd like to invest in a costume you can visit your local dance studio for costumes. A mix and match of different dance costumes from the studios will be interchangeable over the years.

You can save money with homemade cheap costumes by reusing household items or items you find in nature. -

Tip: For green friendly adhesive try honey!

An old pillow or pet bed can be used to stuff parts of your clothing for larger breasts, to make you look fatter or use the stuffing inside a pillow to make beards, mustaches and grey hair.

Old coffee grounds - can be applied to your face for stubble. Use to color your skin. Dye fabric.

Old sheets - Use old sheets for the old standby a ghost costume. Tear the sheets into strips and use green food coloring to make a grass skirt or yellow to make a hay colored grass skirt. Make an apron for a housewife costume.

Feather beds and feather pillows - add honey to your body and stick feathers all over and you're a bird.

Makeup - red lipstick for blood. Mascara can turn your hair black. White powder can make your hair look spooky.

Thread - Make spiderwebs using thread and sticks.

Pet hair or human hair - cut a little hair or brush the cat and you have mustaches. The more hair you save the more things you can do with it!

Leaves and branches - you can make yourself into a tree using branches from outside and gluing them to an old jacket.

Just by looking around your house you can find hundreds of costumes which cost nearly nothing to put together. If you're not adverse to working even harder on your homemade costume you can find costume ideas which are also good for the environment.

Politicians are great to model costumes after. Its easy to base a homemade costume on someone who wears a suit and maybe has grey hair. Learn to model a few of their gestures and its even easier and , in my opinion, funnier!

Some well known celebrities can easily be modeled using homemade materials. A white shirt and pants with colored macaroni can be a passable Elvis outfit. A man's suit on a woman and voila you have Ellen DeGeneres.

While most of the ideas I have are not spectacular, there are some very spectacular homemade costumes which you can think up!

When searching for cheap costumes look no further than your closet or pantry!

Costume parties and Halloween don't come around very often, but you still want to have a unique costume. Something pretty or feminine or maybe something handsome and manly, and you don't want to pay an arm and a leg.

Costume finding is my hobby. Some people play WoW (yes I do that too), some people play poker, or hike, I think up costume ideas or shop for costumes online and in the neighboord. I've come up with some unique homemade costumes and I've even created a sister site for finding sexy adult costumes online.
Not everyone can like my homemade costume ideas, but I think a few people will come away with some good ideas.  I don't only think up homemade costumes, though. I also find costumes on the internet and at shops near my house. I won't share the ones near my house (I'm probably too far for that), but every costume idea I have I will make the information available here.

I hope you find what you're looking for, and keep coming back, because I will have more cheap costume ideas.