Clowns are characters designed to make people laugh, and throughout the year, they bring cheer to everyone from nursing home residents to parade spectators. Clowns are all about expressing their inner personality, so there's plenty of room for creativity in costuming. If you want to come up with an effective clown costume, you have plenty of options, and none of them should cost you very much money. If you have old clothing from the a couple decades ago, this may be a good place to start. Clothes that look a little goofy now make ideal clown fodder, especially if they are brightly colored and feature loud patterns. If you don't have anything like this on hand, try a thrift shop. You should be able to find a complete retro outfit for under ten dollars, as well as some fun accessories to complement it. Clowns come in all sorts of forms, and the more unique your costume, the better. One fun way to accent your costume is to spruce it up with pins and buttons. Another is to wear jumbo sunglasses or a silly hat. Many clowns choose to parade around with a stuffed animal, and sometimes that toy is dressed up as well. The sky is the limit when it comes to creativity. Whatever you think is fun and might make people smile or laugh is a good bet. If you are going to create a clown costume, you ought to buy a funny wig. Costumes stores carry these, and they can often be purchased very cheaply. You might also try your hand at making one, though this can be a complicated prospect. However, you could try something like buying a beanie and affixing lots of yarn to it to resemble hair. Makeup is another common element in clown costumes. The most frequent design involves outlining the mouth broadly and sometimes the eyes and nose as well. You can decide how much or little makeup to wear, but if you're going to wear any, make sure you're leaving yourself enough time to put it on. Clown costumes are Halloween classics. Just show a little creativity and you're sure to get a smile.