Halloween 2013: It's a Zoo!

I finally have good pictures to share with you of the kids Halloween costumes! There was a bit of waffling on their part, but about a month ago they decided that they wanted to be zoo animals. Thankfully, each wanted to be something different!

When they chose their animal, I started planning, I knew I didn't want to make huge, hot fleece costumes that would have to live in the dress up box afterwards. Then I remembered that Hobby Lobby had animal print fabrics. Sure enough, they had each animal the kids had chosen.



For the girls, I used the animal print on one side and a Lisette floral print on the reverse, and made Oliver and S Roller Skate Dresses. They looked adorable, and they can wear them again!

For Ben I made zebra pants using a pajama pattern (from McCalls) and the Easy Linen Pullover from Sewing for Boys. I modified it to have a roll neck instead of adding the collar. It came out great!



Henry was an elephant and wore Ben's old Ed Emberley elephant pants, a hat and tail. No one but Samantha would wear their hat or tail, and no one wanted to wear their mask (which was fine, since it was hard enough to see in the dark!) They will go in the dress up box!

Ben and Ellie really understood that they were getting candy this year, and everyone had a good time. Samantha is already planning their costumes for next year. So far the 3 little pigs and the Big Bad Wolf are in the lead!

I hope you all had a great holiday if you celebrate! Samantha is already on to the next - she wore her Turkey skirt to school today!

KCW Day 2: Easy Peasy!

After my exhaustion of the Family Reunion Dress x2 Monday, I decided to take it easy Tuesday. I had fabric for several skirts for the girls, so I decided to whip those up.



There is an 'H' skirt, a 'K' skirt, 'L' skirts and turkey skirts just for fun! (I can't resist some holiday fun!)

I also managed to get Ben's Zebra costume made, now I just need to make him a mane and tail and make Samantha's tail.



It's nice to have a big whack of projects completed!

Halloween costume wrap up

I thought I'd share pictures of our finished costumes!




Ben and Ellie were Thing One and Thing Two. I purchased the adorable fabric for their pants last year (always a planner!). For their shirts I found long sleeve red shirts at Walmart (I was pleasantly surprised by the feel of the shirts, and it is impossible to find inexpensive plain solid colored long sleeve shirts for toddlers!) and made iron-on transfers for the 'thing' circles. They didn't turn out great (my iron was too hot I think and the transfer didn't adhere all over. Oh well - they are for a costume!  For their hats I knit a basic hat pattern and held fun fur along with a plain yarn. Of course, I used light blue fun fur from my stash and didn't have enough for two hats and JoAnn's didn't have more light blue, so Ellie's is a different color. Oh well!



About halfway through they mostly got the hang of trick-or-treating and would walk up to the houses without holding onto mommy and daddy. They didn't get the 'open up your bag' part, but I'm sure they'll have it down by next year! Everyone thought they were adorable, because, well, they are!



Samantha loved her pumpkin costume - I'm glad I let her have a say in her costume this year - she was so excited to wear it! Although the requests and plans for next year have already started. Let's just say it starts with a p and ends with a 'rincess'. Mommy is not too thrilled, but she has 364 days to change her mind! (And knowing her, she'll want to be 364 different things in the meantime!)

You can't get a good look at my costume, but I made a simple skirt out of a purple poly-satin I found in the remnant bin at Hobby Lobby for something around $.79 and made a poufy underskirt out of green tulle that cost $.17! My hat came from the dollar section at Target and my socks were a great deal at JoAnn's. I added black shoes and a black top and my outfit cost about $6. Win! Samantha was really excited that mommy dressed up, though she did tell me I needed a broom. Maybe next year when I don't have to push a stroller!

Hope you all had a happy Halloween! Now, as one of my friends said, onto the pie holidays! :)

Halloween Costume Tutorial: Easy Ladybug Wings

I took all of these pictures to write a tutorial last year, and I didn't get around to it in a timely manner! I'm hoping I can remember everything I did!

Last year Samantha wanted to be a ladybug. With two six month olds, her costume had to be easy. She wore black pants and a black shirt, and I had found a ladybug mask in the dollar bin at Target earlier that spring (which she refused to wear, of course!) I had a red sparkly headband left over from her first birthday party (it was ladybug themed and we had a lot of extra goodies), and I made antennae out of pipe cleaners and wrapped them around the headband.

Your supplies for the wings are super simple - a big piece of red felt and some small pieces of black felt for spots. (I purchased my red felt at JoAnns - no need for fancy wool felt here!) You will also need small pieces of elastic, a pencil, string, tape measure, scissors, and a hot glue gun or craft glue.
Oh, and I apologize for the quality of the photos here - I didn't have my fancy new iphone that takes better pictures than my big camera! And it was a dark day, so the lights were on and the red fabric glares in the pictures a lot.

I measured across Samantha's wingspan and decided that her wings should come about to her elbows. Then I decided how long I wanted them to be (mid thigh) and measured the midpoint of the height of the wings.

I put a mark at the midpoint and measured out the width of the wings, and made my string that long.

I tied one end around my pencil, held the string straight out from that midpoint dot, and drew a half circle on the felt (my pencil lines didn't show up great on the red felt, so you may want to use a marker and cut inside the lines). I then cut out the wings.

I measured down a few inches from the top and from the center, and sewed elastic onto the wings (but you can certainly glue the elastic down). Also, I didn't think about the white elastic showing on her black shirt, so I ended up coloring it black with a sharpie, so you may want to use black elastic if your ladybug is going to have a black 'body'.

Then I cut several black circles out of the felt (I traced a glass), and when Samantha was up from her nap, she arranged the circles and we glued them down (I used the hot glue gun - she never touched it!). Her ladybug is not symmetrical, but she was three, and didn't care!

My little bugs were very adorable on Halloween! And our ladybug wings still get worn for dress up all the time!