… or this alternate blog post title:
“This girl went as TikTok for Halloween.”
lol.
As Halloween 2020 drew nearer and nearer, I started getting social media memories showing my costumes from previous years. It was just a week before Halloween that I mused this:
Past Halloween costumes suggest I should really be making a TikTok Halloween costume this year… 🧐#socialmedia pic.twitter.com/y8ESwDhqmq
— Linda Hoang 💕 (@lindork) October 24, 2020
As a social media strategist, blogger/content creator, and just enthusiastic social media user, many of these platforms play or have played a big part in my everyday. I’ve “been” Instagram, Vine, and Snapchat for Halloween in years past. Now that I look back on them, I see that these costumes kind of reflect the “popular app of the time.”
- 2014: Instagram Halloween Costume
- 2016: Snapchat Halloween Costume
- 2017: Vine Halloween Costume
TikTok absolutely dominated social media in 2019 into 2020.
It has 800 million active users worldwide, was a top downloaded app in Apple’s app store, is in over 150 countries, boasts (according to an Influencer Marketing Hub report) the highest engagement out of all social networks, has spawned a whole new set of influencer marketing / creators and just such a wide range of humorous, heartwarming, viral videos—the list goes on.
Earlier in 2020 (during the pandemic), I even took on a personal challenge of learning many popular TikTok dances of the time.
So it made a whole lot of sense that for Halloween 2020, I should make (and show you how to make) a TikTok Halloween costume, right? Right!
How To Make a TikTok Halloween Costume for Under $25
Scroll down for downloadable / editable Photoshop and PDF files
Watch my TikTok video of me doing a TikTok dance as TikTok for Halloween, and my video showing how I made my TikTok Halloween Costume:
@lindorable TikTok Halloween Costume!! 🥰☺️👻 ##HalloweenLook ##HalloweenIsHere ##MyCostume ##edmonton ##yeg ##alberta ##renegade
♬ Lottery – K CAMP
@lindorable This is how you make a TikTok Halloween Costume! Get templates on my blog (link in bio). ##HalloweenLook ##MyCostume ##HalloweenIsHere ##edmonton ##yeg
♬ DIY – Heroix
What You Need
- Adobe Photoshop or similar photo editing service (Pixlr is a good free option)
- 20×30 Foam Core Board ($6 from Staples)
- Glue Stick or ($2)
- Knife/Scissors
- A print shop who can print large format files for you ($16)
(Scroll down for the downloadable Photoshop (.PSD) template file you can edit!)
Steps in Photoshop:
- Created a 20×30-inch new file, with image Resolution set to 300 pixels/inch
- (Resolution = VERY IMPORTANT for high quality printing!)
- I took screenshots of my own TikTok and emailed them to myself, so I could use the Colour Picker Tool to match colours.
- Colours I Used: Black #000000, Red/Pink: #ea445a, Grey: #a2a2a2, Teal: #71f2eb, White: #FFFFFF
- TikTok caption font is just Helvetica (Regular and Bold). This font should already be available on your computer.
- I actually found a Free to Use (with Attribution) TikTok Icons Downloadable File from FreePik that I ended up using some icons for, so my costume is a mix of screenshot icons from the app and FreePik TikTok Icons.
- I put a black border around the frame which technically isn’t exactly true to the TikTok interface because TikTok’s interface is more overlayed text and icons, but that just wouldn’t have worked for printing and. cutting out (as the point is that you would stand within the middle frame part).
- For my profile picture on the side, I just opened up the photo file and cut it out using the Elliptical Marquee, then pasted and did slight resizing (Transform tool) to make it fit within the circle.
- Edit the notification number, likes, comments, shares, username, caption, hashtags, and song to customize it to your own account/name/interests.
- That’s it! Save the file as a .jpg or Photoshop PDF (Acrobat 6.0 or up).
- Then send the file (I upload it to Google Drive and provide a link) to your preferred printer, requesting a 20×30 colour print-out (they may have options for matte/glossy/etc. I did glossy for vibrancy but I do find this sometimes shows more fingerprint/smudges).
Assembling the Costume
- Once the costume is printed, you cut out the middle, glue it onto your foam board, cut out the foam board middle, and ta da—you have your TikTok Halloween Costume!
- Depending on how careful you want to be with your cuts/glueing, this process takes about 30 minutes to an hour. I don’t care as much about perfect cuts or perfect glue so I finish assembling in about 30 minutes, lol. I choose stick glue so the printed costume sticks on smoother, but sometimes stick glue isn’t so sticky, so it just depends on preference.
A note about mirroring
- The templates print out in a way where the text is legible in photos and videos direct from your phone, but for some reason if you record right through TikTok, it flips it, so everything is backwards! To get a round that, I just record the video separately and then upload to TikTok. Or you can print two versions, one where everything is flipped already so it works right through TikTok, or the other—normal—one that works via regular photo/video.
Total cost to make this TikTok Halloween Costume: $24
I always get great compliments on these social media costumes (though I won’t really be taking it out anywhere or showing it off in person for Halloween 2020 due to the pandemic), but I’m excited to show it off on social media (and TikTok!)
Download and use my Free Templates:
- You can download a link to my Photoshop template below to easily make your own TikTok costume, just edit the text parts to customize it.
- Or download a PDF version you can just add text to from a PDF reader/editor then just send straight to printing. I left the username and caption spots blank so if you just added text via a PDF reader /editor, it should still look decent!
If you do create a TikTok costume and this blog helped you, tag me on Twitter or Instagram to let me know! I’d love to see your finished product.
Here are a few more photos of me being “TikTok” for Halloween, and a video of me doing the popular TikTok Renegade Dance (not the original, it’s too hard for me to learn lol), and a how-to / behind the scenes video!!
@lindorable TikTok Halloween Costume!! 🥰☺️👻 ##HalloweenLook ##HalloweenIsHere ##MyCostume ##edmonton ##yeg ##alberta ##renegade
@lindorable This is how you make a TikTok Halloween Costume! Get templates on my blog (link in bio). ##HalloweenLook ##MyCostume ##HalloweenIsHere ##edmonton ##yeg
♬ DIY – Heroix
