A Very Despicable Halloween

 

In July I was sitting in the movie theater with my family watching Despicable Me 2 and before the movie was even over, I knew that this would be the theme for our Halloween costumes this year!

Gru was an easy choice for Quin, as he already had most of the outfit in his closet! The gray pants, gray turtleneck sweater, black zip-up jacket and black shoes and belt. I found the striped scarf at Old Navy (bonus that it's something he can wear again) and we added a bald cap from the costume shop and a homemade paper nose.

I knew immediately that I wanted to be Dr. Nefario--I'm not afraid to dress up as a male character (see my Ferb costume from 2010) for the sake of the group! We already had the lab coat in our costume box and the hideous plaid pants were something I thrifted a few years ago to use for another project entirely. I thrifted the yellow t-shirt and wore my own black boots. I ordered the welding goggles and black gloves from Amazon, and added the yellow Gru logos on the gloves using sticky-backed yellow felt from the craft store. The bald cap was from the costume shop and I hot-glued a tuft of batting to the top to make Dr. Nefario's wispy white hair. My kids were completely freaked out at the vision of me in a bald cap and couldn't wait for me to take it off!

Porter was a shoo-in for a yellow Minion because he already owned the crocheted Minion cap. I get comments every time he wears it--I bought it from Etsy a few years back and it really is hilarious! I thrifted his overalls and yellow fleece jacket, bought the black stretchy gloves at the Dollar Tree and he wore his own snowboots. I made a Gru logo for his overalls out of black sticky-backed felt.

Maren wanted to be a purple Minion this year. Now, if I'd been smart I would have ordered her a matching crocheted purple Minion hat from Etsy, just like Porter's. That would have been SO much easier and I think it would have looked so much better. Unfortunately, I didn't have that light bulb until it was too late because all of the listings I could find on Etsy were for custom orders, nothing ready-to-ship. Rats! Her purple hoodie and overalls were thrifted, more Dollar Tree black gloves and her own snow boots just happened to match perfectly! Getting the purple Minion hair right was really tricky! I started out with feather boas but those didn't look right. I finally ended up buying a purple wig at Target and cutting it all apart, then hot-gluing the strips to the hood. It wasn't perfect but I think it gave the effect. I made an El Macho logo for her overalls out of gray felt.

Halloween night was cold and windy here, the coldest it has been in a few years, so our costumes had the bonus of being warm already! We layered long-sleeved shirts and leggings under the overalls, which really helped. Porter got cold and bailed on trick-or-treating pretty early anyway, but he did the same thing on a much warmer night last year so I wasn't too surprised. He was perfectly happy to sit near the neighbor's bonfire and eat his candy. Maren lasted a little longer and had plenty of candy to show for it.

We're already planning next year's costumes! Maren told me she wants to be "something scary" so I found a beautiful red and black princess-type dress at Marshall's. I think we'll turn her into a pretty vampire or spider queen. Maybe I can convince Porter to do something similar, and I'm already thinking ahead to having a 9-month-old baby--perhaps I can be a spider web and he can be a little spider in my arms. I have a whole year to plan!

Book page decoupaged pumpkin

When I was unpacking my Halloween decorations a few weeks ago I found a pumpkin that needed a makeover. It had previously been painted silver in a failed attempt to make it look like faux mercury glass, then I covered it up by putting it inside a black fishnet stocking.

For a change, I decided to decoupage my pumpkin with torn dictionary pages. This is an in-progress Instagram shot so you can still see the white Mod Podge. (After I saw this photo I didn't like all of that white space in the middle so the next day I went back and put more paper over it.) This was the first time I've ever decoupaged something round so I did one side, then propped the dry side in a cereal bowl and left it overnight to dry before doing the other side the following morning. I ended up leaving the stem un-papered because it was already painted silver and it was just easier that way!

To finish it off, I sprayed the top half with spray adhesive and dusted it with coarse clear glitter, then attached a bow made from lace and cream seam binding that I 'aged'. My favorite way to do this is to run it under water and scrunch it in my hand, dry it quickly with my heat tool and then smear on some brown chalk. I added an old blingy rhinestone earring and a vintage silver foil leaf.

I thought it was pretty darn cute, and someone else must have also because it sold from my little booth space! I have one more pumpkin that needs a makeover so I think he's going to get the same treatment!

Costumes of Halloween Past

Witches' Night Out, 2004

Maren's first Halloween costume, 2005

Maren, 2006

Halloween party, 2007. Dog the Bounty Hunter and June Cleaver

Mermaid Maren's first Trick-or-Treating, 2007

Superhero Halloween Party, 2008. I'm The Junker and Quin is Michael Phelps

Fairy Princess Maren, 2008

Mary Poppins, 2008

Haunted Library Halloween Party, 2009. Where's Waldo and that Greg guy from Three Cups of Tea

Porter's first Halloween! Alice in Wonderland, 2009

Phineas and Ferb, 2010

The Scooby Gang, 2011

Disneyland, 2012

One of my all-time favorite pictures of my kids, 2012

I'm working on a little photo album with all of our past Halloween costumes and have had so much fun looking at the past. I love to dress up and I'm lucky to have a family that will go along with my love for costumes!

Halloween 2012

The Art of Compromise. "If you will wear a Peter Pan costume to indulge Mommy for 5 hours, she will buy you any superhero costume that you want."

Easy costume for Maren: $5 cat accessory kit at Target, shirt & pants from her closet, nose & whiskers drawn with eyeliner.

 Action shots

Spooky glowing eyes in the bushes! This is hard to see but check out this pin to see how it's done. It looked great on Halloween night. We'll definitely be doing this again.

Another fantastic Halloween!

Disneyland Halloween costumes 2012

We had two Halloweens this year. For someone whose favorite holiday is Halloween, that was a dream come true!

The first Halloween was at Disneyland, when we attended Mickey's Halloween Party. As usual, I started planning months ago for our costumes. I wanted us to have a group theme, something possibly Disney-related. In the last year the kids and I have listened to a series of books called Peter and the Starcatchers that we've really loved. They tell the origin stories of Peter Pan and Neverland and I highly recommend reading (or listening to the audio read by Jim Dale) the books on your own or with your family! I knew Peter Pan would be a perfect theme for us.

I asked Maren several times if she wanted to be Tinker Bell and she held firm that she wanted to be Wendy. What kind of strange 7-year-old girl gives up the chance to wear a sparkly fairy costume for wearing a nightgown? She didn't even want a blue nightgown like Wendy in the Disney movie--she insisted on wearing her own pink stripey nightgown. We put a pink bow in her ponytail and she was happy. Easy for me!

I knew finding an adult-sized Tinker Bell costume that wasn't ~ahem~ inappropriate would be a challenge, so I started looking early. I thought about making my own but ended up ordering one from eBay, though it was still far too skimpy to wear in public. I needed pants and a shirt to go underneath and found a crazy pair of bronze metallic Spandex leggings at Forever 21 that I cut off at the knee. Those and a matching shirt I already owned provided some coverage but let the green sparkly dress be the focus of the look.

For shoes, I found a pair of green ballet flats at the thrift store and hot-glued on a pair of pom-poms I made from sparkly white yarn.

We knew that The Mister had to be Captain Hook but I also knew that his costume was far too complicated for me to DIY so we ordered it from Amazon. He already had the long, black curly wig from a previous costume--it was perfect! We had planned to resell his costume next year but I think now that we might have to keep it for our costume stash because The Mister looked really fantastic!

Porter did not want to be Peter Pan. He wanted to be a FIREMAN. I worked on him from the time I got the costume idea because I knew he would be a tough sell. About a week before Halloween, he informed me that he wanted to be Captain America and because I was willing to bribe him, I told him I'd buy a superhero costume if he would just be Peter Pan for me at Disneyland. I still expected a big fight when we actually got to California but was shocked when he was excited and happy to wear his Peter Pan costume!

Porter's costume was an easy DIY. I bought an oversize bright green t-shirt at JoAnn's and simply cut off the sleeves and bottom hem to look raggedy. I initially cut the neck into a V but the first version was cut too wide to stay on his shoulders--whoops! Luckily the shirts are so inexpensive it wasn't a big deal to run and get a new one. The pants are actually toddler girls' size 3T brown leggings. I bought a brown leather belt at the thrift store and cut it off and made new holes with my Cropadile. Using felt that I already had in my stash (thank you Gram!) and this tutorial, I MacGyver'd up a hat and a dagger, all with my hot glue gun. He was adorable!

At Disneyland, I made sure that we had a group photo in front of the Peter Pan's Flight ride!

And then we got really lucky and Peter and Wendy themselves were out signing autographs!

I know the days of my beloved group costumes are coming to an end (Maren is willing to go along with it still, Porter--not so much) so I'm happy we got at least one more good one in. Mickey's Halloween Party was really fun and I know our costumes contributed to the whole experience for me!

Jack o' Lanterns

Theme in Yellow
By Carl Sandburg

I spot the hills
With yellow balls in autumn.
I light the prairie cornfields
Orange and tawny gold clusters
And I am called pumpkins.
On the last of October
When dusk is fallen
Children join hands
And circle round me
Singing ghost songs
And love to the harvest moon;
I am a jack-o’-lantern
With terrible teeth
And the children know
I am fooling.