Every year our family loves to create a DIY family Halloween costume with a theme! This year it was EASY to decide the family costume theme – Tess looks SO MUCH like little girl Cruella aka Estella that we had to do a Cruella family costume this year! As a long-time Disney fan, I love that our costumes weren’t only a take on the new Cruella movie, but also incorporated a 101 Dalmatians family costume theme too!
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Child Cruella Costume
On a whim Tess asked our hairdresser to cut her hair “like little girl Cruella” and I was SHOCKED by how adorable the shorter hair is on her but especially how much she really does look like Estella! The similarities are crazy and Tess was SO excited to dress up like her. So much so that this outfit was actually clothing she was wearing on a regular basis around the house. The girl loves to collect random clothing items, at this point she could probably open her own store with all of her looks 😉
I love a family-themed costume but I especially love putting together the costumes in a “diy” fashion. I think that homemade Halloween costumes are THE BEST! Not only do homemade costumes save money without breaking your bank account but they really allow you to have your own style and personal touch and be creative with the end result!
For Tess’s Estella / Child Cruella costume look we used items from around the house and I also did a Goodwill run for some things as well.
I also purchased this hair chalk set to add a bit of color to her hair. My girls have lighter natural hair and I am VERY nervous about any sort of hair color so the chalk was great as it added a bit of color without ruining their hair and washed out easily!
Here are the items we put together for the young Cruella costume look:
Estella Costume Cruella
We knew chid Estella was handled but we struggled a bit with deciding who Britt and I should dress like for our Cruella family costumes. Britt really loves to be a bit edgy in her Halloween costumes (just look back through the years at her looks!) and wanted to dress up like Estella from the Cruella film.
Estella IS Cruella in her “daytime look.” She had a lot of fun in helping pick and choose the items Estella would wear and we did a bit of the red hair chalk (YES it also washed out easily!) on some of her front pieces of hair to help tie in the Estella costume. Again, we mostly shopped her closet as well as Goodwill!
Britt also loves any excuse to wear glasses 😉
Here are the pieces we put together for the Estella costume Cruella daytime look:
Horace and Jasper Costume
When we had the idea for a Cruella family halloween costume we knew right away that Zach had to be Jasper. He’s always whatever movie character is the tallest 😉
You can’t have a 101 Dalmatians family costume without Horace and Jasper and they were both even more major characters in the Cruella movie. I am always so impressed with Kye. Being on the verge of teenage hood he still gets super into and excited about our family theme costumes each year.
He was awesome as Horace! He stayed in character more than anyone else in our family and used a British accent all evening. He practiced facial expressions and had it DOWN!
We put together his look literally the day of. I happened to have this coat in my closet and it MADE the outfit!!!
Zach was also able to wear things he already owned for his Jasper costume. Funny side story but when I was at Goodwill on the hunt for clothing pieces for our costumes I saw this orange dress shirt that would be PERFECT for Jasper. AND it was Zach’s size. AND it was from Express which are actually his favorite brand of dress shirts. I figured for $4 he could rock it for the costume AND would probably even wear it again for work or church.
Yall. When I got home and showed Zach all of the pieces I picked up at Goodwill and showed him the shirt I was so proud of…he said HE HAD DONATED IT. I literally bought BACK a shirt that had already been HIS. Hilarious.
Horace Costume and Jasper Costume pieces:
101 Dalmatians Costume
Of course a must-have for any 101 Dalmatians family costume theme is a Dalmatian puppy! We knew Spear would LOVE to be dressed up as a Dalmatian. Not only because being a puppy is fun and the costume is comfortable but especially because the “friend” that Spear sleeps with every night is a Dalmatian. He loves his “Doggie” so getting to dress up as his doggie was an easy costume for him!
This was one piece of our Cruella family costume idea that I did just buy and didn’t bother to make or do any sort of diy project for. I’ve done enough family costumes over the years to know that sometimes making it yourself can cost more AND take up way more time than it’s worth.
I loved this adorable Dalmatian costume so I bought it and had no regrets! It was perfect and I loved the little collar detail too! He wore his black crocs and was super comfortable and had zero complaints about his costume. There are tons of dalmatians costumes out there but I really did a large search for one that had the cute collar as well as the attached ears and tail.
101 Dalmatian costume:
The whole family costume was so perfect too for how our LIFE is right now. We are ALL literally ALWAYS chasing Spear. So his running off and us having to grab him? Just part of our roles and staying in character 😉
Cruella De Vil Costume
Every year we do a family themed costume and every year I make sure I’m never “that mom.” It’s a personal pet peeve of mine when the mom is the main character or the attention seeking costume and the kids are a side character. It’s just a “thing” for me! I prefer always being the one to put together the costumes and to be a supporting role not the main character in the theme.
Well.
This year the girls were ADAMANT about who they wanted to be. Little girl Cruella. And Estella Cruella. Neither of them wanted to be ACTUAL Cruella De Vil.
You can’t do a Cruella theme and NOT have a Cruella De Vil Costume represented right? I also agreed with their point that it made the most sense for me to be Cruella. Tess is my mini-me and for the characters we’d be playing she was supposed to be the little girl version. So that made sense. And Britt is also my mini me and she’s supposed to be the SAME person that I am just in a different outfit so that made sense too.
Sigh.
I happened to meet another mom dressed as Cruella at Disney for the Boo Bash (our family costumes all make fantastic Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party or Disney’s After Hours Boo Bash costume ideas too!) and loved how she did the look in a very low-key way. I actually asked if she minded me taking a picture of her and she showed me on Amazon the different things she bought to put the look together.
I feel like my overall Cruella De Vil costume was cute without being overboard! I was comfortable (as every mom knows is crucial when it comes to costumes and parenting) and didn’t feel like I was “showy” either.
I had a lot of fun with it and the girls were so encouraging about my look!
I already owned a few items for my Cruella De Vil costume but other than Spear’s mine was for sure the one that required the most purchases:
- my dress (I already owned this and LOVE IT)
- Cruella wig and accessory set (includes the gloves!)
- spotted wrap (this was a genius purchase in my opinion! It’s a scarf with pockets and is SUPER nice quality and a great fleece material…the girls have worn it multiple times this winter!)
Cruella Family Costume
We had such a fun time planning our Cruella family costume theme this year. We take our family costumes pretty seriously and it’s so fun to me how every single one of us get INTO our roles. It really makes it even more fun when everyone in our group has such a great time with it and is a good sport about it.
More Family Halloween Costume Ideas
Here are all of our past Halloween family costumes! As one year ends we start brainstorming the next one 🙂
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