A Halloween costume from what is in the wardrobe: photo in, three ideas out, nothing to buy

Three days to the school party, the child wants to go as something they cannot quite explain, and the costume shop is twenty minutes away and charges twenty pounds for something that lasts one afternoon. There is another way: tip half the wardrobe onto the bed, take a photo and let the AI look at the clothes with different eyes. A grey hoodie plus an umbrella is a storm cloud. A striped jumper plus some card is an escaped convict. White pyjamas plus black electrical tape is a skeleton you can wash on Monday.

Before the photo: two rules and two minutes

• You photograph the clothes, not the child. Laid out on the bed, no faces, no name labels, no school or club logos in shot.
• If you would rather not upload any photo at all, type a list: ten garments and five things from around the house (umbrella, bedsheet, card, electrical tape, clothes pegs). It works just as well.
• The child picks the mood before you start: scary, funny or heroic. That way the AI does not propose three things they refuse to wear.
• Only things that can be done this afternoon without sewing and without cutting anything that belongs to someone else.

My [AGE] year old needs a Halloween costume for [WHEN] and we are not buying anything. I am showing you a photo of the clothes we have (or here is the list: [LIST]). We also have at home: card, black and white electrical tape, an umbrella, an old bedsheet, clothes pegs and child-safe face paint. Suggest three different costumes, one scary, one funny and one heroic, using ONLY what you can see or what I have listed. For each: the costume's name, which garments it uses, three assembly steps a child can do with an adult in 20 minutes with no sewing and no cutting of clothes, and one line the child can say when walking into the party. Nothing to buy, no scissors near the clothes.

See it before you build it

This is where the child decides. Ask an image generator for a sketch of each costume, with no photo of anyone: you describe an invented child and the exact clothes. Three sketches, one choice, and the argument about what to wear is over before it starts.

Draw a simple sketch, in the style of a children's book illustration, of an invented child about [AGE] years old (not a real person) dressed as [COSTUME NAME]. They are wearing exactly this: [GARMENTS AND ACCESSORIES FROM THE SUGGESTION]. Plain background, full body, no text. I want to see how the costume looks built from those exact clothes, not the shop version.

The same trick works for the next dressing-up day. Halloween is over on the first of November and the school will find another reason to dress up before Christmas, a book day, a nativity, a themed Friday. The same prompt with the occasion changed turns the leftover card and tape into a shepherd, a pirate or a character from whatever they are reading. And by February the wardrobe is a different size and the photo gets taken again.

• White and black electrical tape: solves skeletons, mummies, convict stripes and belts.
• Card and a stapler: wings, lightning bolts, crowns, badges and clocks.
• Clothes pegs: belt tools, claws, pointed ears.
• Child-safe face paint, tested on the arm the day before.
• Something that glows or reflects if the costume is going out on the street after dark.