After your first Halloween as a college student, you realize that holiday lasts well beyond one night on campus.  A better name for it might be Halloweek. Because of this, you no longer have the luxury of choosing one costume and wearing it for one night. Rather, each night of the weekend is an opportunity to wear something you would never wear during the actual school year. As a result, college students go above and beyond for Halloween costumes.

From a social standpoint, the opportunity to go out every night dressed up as something different is awesome. From a financial stance, however, this is not so awesome. Instead of ordering costumes online or frantically running to Ragstock to buy costumes that will inevitably be worn by many other students throughout campus, make your own costumes! With a little effort and the right materials, you can make great and creative costumes for less. Here are 5 materials that SHEI considers are a must to making your creative Halloween costumes:

1. Duct tape—duct tape costs less than $5.00 a roll, and it can be used to make many costumes. These include an Ipod, a crayon, or a candy corn. Start out by making a duct tape dress. To do this, find a big T-shirt and put your body through the hole for the head. Then cut off the sleeves and, starting at the top, roll duct tape around your body. Pick any color you want. Then simply use paper to either write Crayola, if you are a crayon, or make the control circle, if you are an Ipod. If you want to be a candy corn, make the duct tape dress white, yellow and orange, and add an orange party hat!
2. Brown cardboard box—With a little paint, a cardboard box can be the main part of a great and inexpensive Halloween costume. These costumes can include a gift box, a rubix cube, or a leggo. Simply cut arms and leg holes and position the box around your body. If you are a gift box, you can wrap the box in cool wrapping paper and add bows. If you choose to be a rubix cube, paint the box in squares of red, white, blue, and yellow. And, lastly, if you choose to be a leggo, tape solo cups onto the front of the box and paint it whichever leggo color you choose to be!
3. Balloons—Buy a bag of balloons and be either grapes or a bag of candy! Just blow up the balloons, green or purple if you are grapes or multiple colors if you are candy, and tape them onto your clothes!
4. A black garbage bag—A black garbage bag, an item in every home, can be made into many Halloween costumes when added with the right accessories. These include bats, vampires, witches, and cats. Just buy some fangs, cat ears, or a witch hat and put the trash bag over your clothes!
5. A white sheet—Along with functioning as the admittedly clichéd ghost costume, a simple white bed sheet can be a cheap way to make many other Halloween costumes. You can make the sheet into a toga and be a Greek Goddess or Caesar, or you can add a halo and be an angel!