Homemade Halloween

The girls had another fun, candy filled Halloween. And I can easily say I am VERY happy that it has come (and gone). Working on their costumes this year was definitely a bit of a challenge for me. There are lots of little things that bug me about them still, but overall they turned out cute and you don't really notice all the flaws unless you are looking for them.

But first, a little background.

About a month ago, I sat down with the girls and asked them what they wanted to be for Halloween. The first thing out of Riley's mouth was, "Rapunzel!" which I totally expected, as she (along with every other little girl right now) LOVES the movie "Tangled". But I didn't want to try sewing a princess dress and I also didn't want her to have the same costume as everyone else, so I nixed the idea. Her rebuttal was, "Rosetta!" which is one of the new Disney fairies. Again I felt this was overdone, so I declared it the year of NO PRINCESSES or FAIRIES. I wanted the girls to use their imaginations and come up with something creative and different.

I was surprised and pleased with choices they ended up picking.

Adrianne chose to invent her own superhero. She is a superhero named "Wind" who's superpowers include harnessing the wind and it's energy to do her bidding.

Wind

Naturally wind can fly very fast. Since Adrianne's current favorite color is blue, Wind would also have a primarily blue super-suit accentuated with white and black. And of course no superhero would be caught without their mask.

It's a bird! It's a plane! No! It's SUPER WIND!

The masked face of justice.

Riley went with a cartoon character, albeit one that isn't quite as popular these days. She choose to go as Strawberry Shortcake. However, she didn't want to do the traditional Strawberry Shortcake dress with the old timey dress and pinafore. She wanted more of the new updated version. And of course she wanted PINK hair, however I had to cut that part out when I couldn't find a pink wig cheaply and wasn't in the mood to attempt using the hair color sprays to dye it pink!

Strawberry Shortcake

Since Emmaline is still pretty little, I was able to convince her that SHE wanted to be a bumblebee. Since I felt that Adrianne's costume (and Riley's to a lesser extent) was going to take a lot of work, I wanted something that was going to be EASY and CHEAP. A bumblebee seemed like the perfect solution.

Little Bumblebee

I will say that each kiddos costume went through significant modifications from our original draft patterns to what they ended up wearing. And for all of them I was sewing by the seat of my pants (ie I didn't have any patterns or even really instructions I was following) just making it all up as I went along, so I suppose I should be happy they didn't turn out even worse!

I was able to re-purpose many items and incorporate them into the costumes, thereby reducing the cost. Actually, the only items that were in fact purchased was the blue, pink and black fabric used in the costumes, the green and pink felt for the strawberries, and then the headband Emmaline wore, which I found for $1 and then added the antennas onto it. Everything else was made from things I already had on hand in our house.

Close up of Strawberry headband that replaced the pink hair.

Some things were easy to create as there are lots of tutorials online. Emmaline's wings were made from two wire hangers and a pair of black nylon panty hose. All I had to do was follow the instructions.

Bumblebee wings!

Other things I had to get creative with. The bumblebee antennas are made from that dollar hairband, two drinking straws, two cotton balls and black electrical tape. The stripes for both Emmaline's and Riley's stockings was masking tape that I colored with a marker and then taped over solid color stockings they already had.

Adrianne's whole super-suit was a labor of love. It was the first time that I had ever sewed with lycra swimsuit material, which is super stretchy and often slips in the sewing machine. Then I was also trying to sew a very form fitting outfit, so all my measurements had to be precise and there would be little room for error in the construction of the pattern. I did pretty well and the only thing that I actually had to go back and completely resew was the shoe part of the boots/leggings. But it was a learning experience for sure, and I'm glad that I did it. Especially because she was so happy with the result.

"Look Mommy! It's a Super Hero!"

Oh and Max used the Monster Pajamas that Emmaline wore two years ago. I took a whole bunch of shots of the four of them together in their costumes, but because of wiggly kids, this is the best shot that I got out of them:


Oh, and need I mention they got way too much candy? They did.