We're Judging over 2000 (!!!) New Costumes Winners To Be Announced by Dec. 15

Over 2000 (!!!) inspiring homemade costumes were submitted to this year's Costume Contest that ended on Nov. 7th, 2009! Lots of creative people put in lots of energy to write detailed descriptions of how their costumes were made. We'd like to invest the same amout of energy to carefully review the submissions. Therefore, the judging process will take a while and winners will be announced no later than Dec. 15th, 2009. Thanks for your patience.

The announcement will be made via our newsletter (sign up for free here) and on the Contest Winners page.

Why is it taking us so long to judge?

Just like your homemade costumes, this site is also "home-made". Unlike Facebook, MySpace and all the other big social networking sites where you see your posts immediately, everything on this site is handled manually. We are just two people, my sister, Tamar, and myself sitting at home in front of a computer just like you are right now, trying to figure out how in heaven's name we are going to manually review over 2000 costumes!? (And we've got a few other sites to handle also...)

We'll get it done, I promise! But because of the volume of submissions, it'll take us a bit longer than expected so please, please bear with us. We review each and every submission, polish up the content and place it in the correct category. We also review each and every comment on the site so that there won't be any rude or obscene remarks (at least we try our best to keep the rubbish off of our site). It's tedious work, but this site is our "baby" (although it's become a monster-size baby over the years - 4.5 Million people visited this site during October 2009!) and we want to make sure that it stays the most special place on the Web for homemade costume inspiration.

Next year we'll make sure to get some extra help during this time of year to shorten the waiting time because we know how eager you are to see your costumes online and see the contest results. This year, it'll take us a bit longer, but we've decided to make it up to you and add another $500 worth of prizes (on top of the already $1000 worth of prizes).

All costumes should be online and categorized by December 15th, upon which we'll make the contest prize announcement.

Thanks to all of you who took the time to submit your wonderful creations!

You can see all the costumes submitted on these pages:

(If you've submitted your costume and still can't see it, then we're working on having it posted. Like I said, it's all a manual process to ensure this site continues to provide only high quality content.)

If you've got a cool homemade costume, and didn't submit in time for this year's contest, don't worry. Any costume submitted from now until next Halloween will be included in the next contest. We'd love for you to submit your ideas...

Share Your Homemade Costumes Ideas, Tips and Photos

(Your homemade costume deserves
more than one day of glory...)

Home » Costume Submission Form

Click Here to go directly to the costumes submission form below...

Hi Folks,

I'm Elad (the Original Pringles Man.. ;-).

It's always loads of fun coming up with a cool costume that's fresh and original (and that no one else has...).

But once the party is over, the costumes usually get stashed away, and all that's left are a few pictures (that often get buried in an album or some never-to-be-found folder on the computer).

The hard part is usually coming up with a unique idea (execution may sometimes take less than an hour - like Mr. Pringles over here...). And there are so many of you creative and talented beings out there who've thought up (and continue to conjure up) some of the coolest and most original costume ideas.

So why let all that creative energy go to waste?!

By sending us your homemade costumes, photos and tips, you'll be automatically entered into the next contest (the first prize in the latest contest was an 8 Gig iPod Touch!) But, more importantly, the energy you invested into making the costume will be shared with others and come back right at you when you're in need of a few great ideas.

Just look at this site - it's built entirely on ideas and photos shared with us by visitors like yourself. And it's here, with hundreds of cool homemade costumes and tips at your fingertips, growing by the day, for free forever, to enjoy and find inspiration from.

All photos and tips submitted will be made available online for everyone to enjoy, making your submission part of a resource that'll be there for lots of people around the world - and yourself - next time you'll need some cool ideas for a costume.

Costume Submission Guidelines

2010 COOLEST COSTUME CONTEST TERMS AND CONDITIONS

Only submissions with BOTH IDEAS AND PHOTOS will be eligible to win
Each homemade costume picture must be of costumes that you or a family member MADE (not purchased). However, if you've come up with a really creative idea to add-on to a purchased costume - send it over. You've got nothing to lose.
A homemade costume picture and writeup must be original and cannot be copied from another source.
Submit as many photos of CHILD, ADULT or even PET costumes as you'd like - but make sure you choose the coolest ones.
Send a series of costume pictures that show how you made the costume stage-by-stage.
Submit a video of the costume. You can also upload a video of the costume to YouTube or any other video-sharing site and send us the link. Make sure the clip can be embedded so we can feature it on the site alongside the photos.
Your homemade costumes DON'T need to be perfectly designed costumes. Submissions are judged not only on "looks", but on creativity, your write-ups, photo composition, and whatever else may catch the judges' eye.
Explain how you created the costume, where the idea came from, a few how-to tips that'll help make it easier for others, or provide any other information you'd like to share. A detailed writeup will increase your chances of winning a prize!

Preparing Your Images

Preparing your costume picture for our gallery will help us get it online faster and also make your costume look its best.

Resizing your images: Your costume photo will be automatically resized once you upload it. However, we suggest that you crop and resize your images beforehand so that you ensure your costume photo looks exactly the way you want it. It's best to resize your photo to 400 pixels width. When resizing the width, make sure to keep the 'aspect ratio' of the heigth so that the image isn't distorted.

Cropping your images: To crop your image so that your costume is right in the center and as large as can be, you can use your own photo editor (such as Photoshop) or this easy-to-use online photo editor.

Here is an example of an image before and after being cropped:

Uncropped Photo of Costume

Before being cropped...

Cropped Photo of Costume

After being cropped...

Here are more examples of properly cropped photos...

Sending more than one photo: The form below enables you to upload only one costume picture. Make sure you send the very best photo with the form. However, if you feel that your costume deserves more than just one picture you can send us up to three more photos to coolestparties[at]gmail.com. Remeber to include your name and any other additional information that'll help us.

By submitting your photos and writeups you grant Coolest-Homemade-Costumes.com permission to republish, alter and create derivatives in any and all media whatsoever.

IMPORTANT! - We suggest you save your writeup as a Word document so that if there's a technical glitch and it doesn't come through, we'll ask you to send your submission again and you won't have to rewrite it.

Submit Your Costume Here

Give Your Homemade Costume A Name...

Tell Us All About Your Costume... (Required At Least 150 Words)

IMPORTANT! - We suggest you save your writeup as a Word document so that if there's a technical glitch and it doesn't come through, we'll ask you to send your submission again and you won't have to rewrite it. [ ? ]