Saint Costume Guide

for your kid’s All Saints’ Day costumes

Many Catholic schools over the years have transitioned into doing Halloween dress-up a bit differently! Our school has the children dress up as their favorite saints to celebrate All Saints’ Day, which is on November 1st. The feast day celebrates all those who have attained heaven and we especially celebrate those honored by the Church for giving wonderful examples of Christianity to us!

Often people misunderstand Catholicism in that they perceive our reverence for saints (especially Mary) as worship. That is not the case, though, when we ask for saints’ intercession, we are simply asking the saints to pray for us to God, because in their holiness they are close to Him.

Okay, enough theology, back to the fun! I don’t love sewing, but I DO love sewing Halloween costumes, which means I also love sewing saint costumes! That being said, saint costumes do not have to be complicated to be a good representation of the saint. Additionally, if you have multiple children in Catholic school, many items can be re-used from year to year to display different saints.

Here are the costumes I’ve done so far:

For Saint Pope John Paul II, I waited until the last minute and threw together this costume the night before! The white fabric was a knit, slightly fuzzy fabric so I was able to leave the ends unsewn. Keep that in mind if you head out to Joann Fabrics! I basically cut a small hole and slit in the middle of a long rectangle of the fabric and used velcro to attach at the back. Then I made a capelet which also attached with velcro. The papal mitre was made with yellow felt and stiff interface fabric.

For St. Francis of Assisi, I made a brown friar’s robe, which I’m sure I’ll be able to use for another saint as well in the future. I bought some rope trim to use as a belt and attached a stuffed animal wolf to the side with some velcro. The final touch was the little felt feet! St. Francis is always depicted barefoot or with sandals, so I formed the tan felt over top of his sneakers, drew the foot with a Sharpie marker, and used some elastic to secure it around his sneakers. A simple black rosary completed this costume!

DIY with some sewing

Here are my suggestions if you have a sewing machine and a little bit of time to make some garments.

• Buy fabric at the craft store that does not have to be sewn at the edge. Fleece, knits, and velvet are great options that won’t require sewing the edges/hems. This way you can sort of drape fabric around your child to form the costume, then attach it either with a little bit of sewing, hot glue, or stick on velcro. Knit fabric can be difficult to work with if you are going to do actual sewing, though, so keep that in mind.
• Stick on velcro can help you to create closures in the costume.
• If this is for a preschooler or kindergartner, you may be able to use an xl t shirt for some kind of robe.
• Felt is easy to use with hot glue and can be cut to make simple shapes that help define the costume. (like making a cross or stripes)
• A headband and cloth can be easily used to make a religious habit if your saint was a nun.
• Here are some tutorials for creating robes, capelets, and gowns: robe with hood, cape with hood, cape (no hood), I tried to find a free gown pattern for you, but I couldn’t! Here is a nice one you can buy, or if I had daughters, I would take the longest dress they have and lay it on top of my piece of fabric folded in half. Then cut about an inch and a half around the dress carefully and sew the pieces together, making the bottom longer if necessary.

No Sew Costume Ideas

I get it, sewing isn’t your favorite and you don’t have time to go to the craft store. What can you pick up from the Target Halloween aisle or order from Amazon? Here are a few ideas that include things you may even already have that you can use to create a saint costume:

• St. Michael the archangel: warrior shield and breastplate and wings (hot glue + cardboard + a bag of feathers and I bet you could make some in 25 minutes) maybe even a scale
• St. George: Suit of armor / warrior breastplate and a stuffed animal dragon
• St. Joan of Arc: suit of armor/warrior breastplate, red cape/dress, flag with fleur-de-lys on it
• St. Kateri Tekakwitha: a Native American costume and a small, wooden cross
• St. Gianna Molla: a doctors coat and cross necklace
• St. Elizabeth of Hungary: queen’s dress, crown, basket of bread
• St. Maximilian Kolbe: striped pajamas, round glasses, book
• St. Francis of Assisi: brown jedi robe costume (friar’s robes) with some kind of belt and a wolf
• St. Anthony of Padua: brown jedi robe costume (friar’s robes), baby doll with halo (the Christ child) and lilies
• St. Padre Pio: brown jedi robe costume (friar’s robes), gloves with cut off fingers to cover the stigmata
• St. Lazarus: torn clothing and sores (maybe use some makeup?) with a crutch and stuffed animal dogs
• The Blessed Mother/St. Mary/Our Lady of Lourdes/ Our Lady of Guadeloupe, basically all the ways to honor the Queen of Heaven: WALMART HAS SEVERAL MARY COSTUMES YOU CAN BUY. I would get that and add things to it to make it a specific Marian devotion: Our Lady of Fatima: gold and white crown and gold rope belt, maybe a sacred heart on the chest; Our Lady of Lourdes: blue sash, rosary, holy water; Queen of Heaven: crown and scepter; Our Lady, Undoer of Knots: long, knotted rope.

My last bit of advice in this guide is to use Google Images. Google the saint your child wants to be and look through all the different images of that saint. See how he/she is usually depicted and think about what things you have that could be used in your child’s costume. Also check this 2014 post from Catholic All Year to show you 150+ kid saint costumes. It’s very inspiring!

My kiddos costumes in 2021: St. George, St. Mark the Evangelist, and St. David of Wales

Update!!! I’m so happy to see this post viewed over and over throughout the month of October! I mostly write crochet patterns, and had the (I think) brilliant idea to include some crochet ideas for Saint costumes! So I have a new guide for crochet Saint costumes here for that and a new, totally free, crochet pattern here for making a Papal Mitre!