Emoji Day Costume Ideas for Kids

Here are the five easiest emoji costumes, ranked by simplicity: 1. Heart-Eyes Emoji: Yellow shirt + heart-shaped sunglasses. The sunglasses cost $3-5 and do all the work. Draw a small smile on a yellow circle of paper and pin it to the shirt if you want to go further, but the sunglasses alone communicate the emoji clearly. 2. Poop Emoji: A brown beanie or brown hood, large googly eyes (glued or pinned on), and a smile drawn below. This is the crowd favorite for kids who like getting laughs. A brown shirt adds to the effect but isn't strictly necessary. 3. Laughing-Crying Emoji: Yellow shirt + tears drawn on the face with face paint or eyeliner (blue drops under each eye) and a big smile drawn on. This is the most DIY-friendly option — no purchases needed if you own a yellow shirt and have face paint or eyeliner at home. 4. 100 Emoji: A red shirt with "100" written or ironed on. Use red felt, red tape, or a printable iron-on transfer. The double underline beneath the 100 is the detail that makes it recognizable. This is the most popular choice for older kids and tweens. 5. Ghost Emoji: A white sheet with the ghost emoji face (eyes and tongue) drawn or cut out. The tongue sticking out is what makes it the ghost emoji instead of a regular ghost. Simple, funny, and instantly recognizable. For a quick purchased option, emoji t-shirts with the face printed on them are available for $8-12 and eliminate all DIY. Your kid just puts on the shirt and goes.

Emoji Day is one of the best DIY spirit week themes because the base is so simple. The universal emoji base: a yellow shirt (or a white shirt colored with yellow fabric paint or marker). That's your emoji face background. Everything else is adding features. For heart-eyes: cut two hearts from red construction paper or felt and tape or glue them to a pair of old sunglasses. Or just draw hearts around your kid's eyes with red face paint. For laughing-crying: use blue face paint or eyeliner to draw three teardrop shapes under each eye. Draw a wide open-mouth smile with face paint or a marker on paper pinned to the shirt. Squint the eyes with eyeliner for the laughing effect. For poop emoji: roll brown construction paper into a soft swirl shape and attach it to a headband. Add two large googly eyes (craft store, $2) and draw a smile below. A brown shirt completes the look. For 100 emoji: cut the numbers "100" from red felt or construction paper. The key detail is the double underline beneath the number — that's what makes it recognizable as the emoji versus just the number. Safety-pin or fabric-glue it to a red shirt. The simplest possible emoji costume: write a giant emoji face on a paper plate with markers, punch holes for string, and hang it as a necklace over any yellow shirt.