Shrek Family Costume

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY SWAMP?!” The Shrek gang is all back together to help celebrate Halloween 2024!!!

“Once upon a time, there was a lovely princess. But she had an enchantment upon her of a fearful sort, which could only be broken by love’s first kiss. She was locked away in a castle guarded by a terrible fire breathing dragon. Many brave knights had attempted to free her from this dreadful prison, but none prevailed. She waited in the dragons keep. In the highest room of the tallest tower, for her true love and true loves first kiss.” LIKE THAT’S EVER GONNA HAPPEN!

Shrek is BY FAR one of our favorite family movies (all of the Shrek movies that is! Can’t wait for number 5!!!) Almost any chance we get to sit down as a family to watch a movie and eat popcorn, the girls beg for Shrek! Kids movies can become tiresome after watching them over and over, but I will never tire of Shrek! The plot and characters are so silly and charming and I am so happy we got to make this costume happen this year!

The real inspiration as to why we did this costume, and chose to portray the first movie characters (rather than any of the other Shrek movies) is simply because of Violett’s current hairstyle! Over the summer, she got bangs, and the second her hair was cut, I joked and said it looked like Lord Farquaad’s hair! And that was that! From that point on, we knew we had to make this costume happen! haha I think it is extra funny that she is Farquaad because she is the shortest of all of us (obviously) and it makes for the perfect short prince!!

SHREK

“OGRE’S ARE LIKE ONIONS, THEY HAVE LAYERS.”

Our favorite swamp-living, eyeball-eating, princess-saving, ogre, Shrek! This costume was sooo fun to make!!! Any time I get to use face paints in a costume, it becomes my new favorite! And this green is my favorite color, so that made it even more enjoyable! My husband fully committed to being Shrek! Not only did he wear a bald cap and paint his face and arms green, he also shaved his beard for it! We always joke because every year I end up picking out a family costume where he has to shave his beard! haha Who knows what hairless man I will choose for him to be next year! haha

HOW TO:

EARS – To make Shrek’s ears, I used foam clay and shaped them into a “trumpet” shape. I then allowed the clay to air-dry. Once dried, I hot glued them onto a headband and then spray painted the whole piece green!
VEST – For the vest, I found the perfect “destressed” looking fabric from Hobby Lobby and painstakingly measured the material around my husband and made cuts to make sure it fit him just right! (Prob could have used a vest pattern – but I free-handed it all) After the vest was assembled, I sewed on 6 D-rings so that we could pull the rope through and tie the vest in the front.

LINKS: TOP | BOTTOMS | FACE PAINT | BALD CAP | FOAM CLAY

FIONA

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I love using my hair as a prop for Halloween! Whenever I get the chance to dress up as a redheaded character I absolutely will make it happen! Fiona is one of my favorite badass redheads, too, so it made it even more fun to dress up as her!

This costume is the only costume that wasn’t a DIY. I tried my hardest to find a long-sleeve green maxi dress, but alas I could not and had to resort to ordering a costume! Bummer! This dress was actually great quality though and I think helped bring the entire family costume together!

LINK: DRESS

DONKEY

I’d like to introduce our noble steed, Donkey! This costume was definitely the easiest to DIY! I bought a matching gray sweat-suit and painted a little white on the belly and then a little black cross on the back (not pictured). Other than that, it was just as simple as buying a little “donkey” accessory pack off of Amazon, and throwing on some black gloves and boots!

LINKS: SWEATSHIRT | SWEATPANTS | DONKEY EARS/NOSE/TAIL | FACEPAINT

LORD FARQUAAD

Farquaad is everyone’s favorite short, bad-boy! And Violett was just the girl to portray him! haha She had sooo much fun dressing up and bragging to everyone that she was Farquaad! I will never get over seeing her all dressed up for the first time as him! We all busted out laughing as soon as I put the hat on!
This costume was relatively simple to pull off. It consisted of a long sleeve black top, black leggings, a red short sleeve dress, a red hat, red cape and red gloves!

HOW TO:

HAT/DRESS/BELT – I bought a solid red dress and beret and used gold iron on vinyl to add all the details to this costume. Most of the details I cut by hand and then ironed on. But the bottom of the dress, I used my Cricut to cut out the intricate design. I also used a thick black ribbon for the belt, and ironed on a little gold belt buckle!

LINKS: DRESS | CAPE | HAT

“RUN, RUN, RUN, AS FAST AS YOU CAN, YOU CAN’T CATCH ME, IM THE GINGERBREAD MAN!”
“YOU’RE A MONSTER!”
“I’M NOT THE MONSTER HERE, YOU ARE…”

When creating this Farquaad costume, I knew I absolutely HAD to make a little Gingy to go with it! Luckily for me, Christmas decor is already in stores, so I just bought a little gingerbread man from the dollar spot at Target and painted him to match Gingy!

“BLUE FLOWER, RED THORNS! BLUE FLOWER, RED THORNS! BLUE FLOWER, RED THORNS! Man, this would be so much easier if I wasn’t COLOR-BLIND!”

Since we gave Farquaad Gingy, I thought I had to give Donkey a little prop too! So I bought a blue (faux) flower and painted all the thorns red!

The face paint was a little messy! It ended up getting all over his shirt! Oh well!

I know I say it all the time, but this costume may go down as my favorite of all time! Each of our individual costumes came together so well, and I think you can tell from the pictures just how much fun we had dressing up!

This is officially a wrap on 2024 Halloween costumes! I had the best time thinking up and creating them all this year and I am so thankful to have you along with me for the ride! Until next year! ❤