EDITOR’S NOTE: One in a series on helping readers save money.

Don’t let high prices and economic problems scare you out of having a happy Halloween with your kids.

You can find all sorts of inexpensive ways to dress up or decorate — and many of those things can be found right in your closet, area experts say.

All it takes is imagination and time.

“Try to utilize items you already have,” said Muskogee County Family and Consumer Science Extension Educator Virginia Stanley. She listed several costume ideas that require only old clothes, fancy scarves or out of style duds.

“You can be a scarecrow, a pirate, a 1950s sock hop teen,” she said. Frugality-oriented Web sites have all sorts of costume ideas, she said.

Do-it-yourselfers can find fabric and accessories at Hobby Lobby, Hancock Fabrics and other stores.

Pam Moulder, manager of scrapbooking at Hobby Lobby, said people can use all sorts of fabrics for costumes. For example, tulle, gauze and cheesecloth can make an eerier ghost than a sheet.

Chris Moreno, who works in the store’s fabric department said people also can make costumes out of flannel and felt.

“People buy a lot of shimmery fabric such as lamé,” she said.

Though it helps to know how to sew, people can easily assemble costumes using fabric glue, Moulder said.

“There is a lot you can glue together,” she said. “It’s only going to be worn one night. Take fabric and slap it together.”

Moulder said people also can make creative and inexpensive costumes with, of all things, balloons.

“You can be a bag of jelly beans with multi-colored balloons or a bunch of grapes with purple balloons,” she said. “Just get a bag of balloons, blow them up and attach them to a trash bag or sweat suit.”