{Happy Halloween}

Happy Halloween Friends! I hope you have made the most out of the spooky season. My family and I sure have. By now we've all dressed up a few times for different events and parties. Here's a glimpse of some of the costume fun we've been having. 

First let's start with last year's Mad hatter and Queen of Hearts. Mostly because it's my favorite costumes to date. So I will be overly gratuitous with the pictures.

It took some thrifty finds, sewing & hot gluing, and  good 'ole fashion elbow grease to bring them both together. 

We even won best costume on a friend's party last year. 

This year we stuck with Tim Burton with Beetlejuice and Lydia. It made our 80's/90's hearts very happy.

This year I also went with a friend to a party and dressed as a Doll. She dressed as Cindi Lauper.

The make up was fun and only slightly laborious. 

My boys also dressed as Woody and a Ninja for HallZOOween this year. 

They have different costumes for trick or treating tonight that I can't wait to share. 

Truth is, I'd like lots more opportunities to create costumes and wear them. I guess I never really grew out of my dress-up phase as a little girl. 

So have a wonderful night of spooky treats, cute costumes and sugar induced comas!

Goblin Gear

Oh my friends, one of the greatest holidays of all is upon us. Halloween! In my house it is taken very seriously. Costumes are brainstormed, decided upon and mostly diy'ed. A true labor of love.


 Last year my two little goblins wanted to be Batman and the Joker. Of course my little Caleb was very specific about which joker he wanted to be. I felt I had my work cut out for me on this one. 

Purple trench coat? Not gonna find that at The Gap. I'm also not the most experienced seamstress, actually I shouldn't use that word. I can use a sewing machine, that's about it. My saving grace was seeing felt on sale at my local fabric store and rejoicing that the edges wouldn't have to be finished. So I purchased both purple and green felt at half off (so not a major loss if I botched the whole thing) and got to work winging it. 


Did I mention I like quick projects with instant gratification? Tedious detailed projects and I aren't friends.


I used a pair of Caleb's existing pants and long sleeved shirt as my patterns.


 For the coat:
 I folded the purple felt over to double it up and laid the shirt down on top making sure the top of the shirt was on the folded end. I traced using chalk around his shirt accounting for several inches for trench coat length. I then cut out and literally sewed up all the sides. I cut down the center from collar to end so he could put it on and folded back the upper sides to form a collar and pressed.  


 For the pants:
 I doubled the purple felt and laid his pants down, traced with chalk, cut out and sewed up sides. This technique is not going to win any awards, but it worked! 


 For the vest and tie: 
 I also doubled the green felt and literally free-handed with chalk a vest. I cut out and put it on Caleb noting how it fit and then adjusted. I cut a tie shape out of the felt and hand stitched it to a white t-shirt he wore underneath the vest. To be completely honest, all of this could have been done with a hot glue gun and some hope. Felt is the best. I found some purple gloves at the dollar store and cut the fingers. A bit of makeup and my little Mister was maniacal. 


 Batman was easy as I just used a thrifted costume and cut to fit my little Quinn. He would not allow additional fussing. Turns out kids waiting for mother-loads of candy don't nap well, therefore creating a case of the grumps.

 I'm not sure if the boys enjoyed wearing them more than I enjoyed the whole process. So what to do this year? Do I make it easy and go store bought this year for my guys? My busy schedule is making me feel the time crunch. Let's see what I can do maybe with some more felt and a hot glue gun. Stay tuned!