My wife and I decided to go as our favorite stop-motion duo from Tim Burton's "The Nightmare Before Christmas." I had seen other takes on this costume, but Jack's head always seemed to be a weak point, so I knew I needed to pay close attention to it. For my version, I crafted the head by molding papier-mache over a balloon. Once that dried, I added dry newspaper and tape to sculpt the brow and nose, then finished it off with more papier-mache draped into the eye holes and a final coat of plaster cloth over the whole thing. The last step was painting the features, gluing black mesh on the inside of the eyes and mouth to hide my face, and gluing foam to the inside of the whole piece so it fit snugly on my head. The jaw was attached to a painter's spray hood so I could pull it on separately.
My wife helped me cut the jacket to fit and paint stripes on the suit; she also made the bat bow tie out of wire and papier-mache. For her costume, she salvaged fabric from Goodwill (several XL men's polo shirts in various terrible colors) which she cut up and stitched together by hand with black yarn. I helped paint the swirls.
Overall, I think they turned out pretty awesome. We got a lot of compliments and a few excited kids, so I was happy. Now I just have to think of something for next year!