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!

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!

Halloween 2011: leftovers

Remember the giant teeth Trunk-or-Treat idea that I Pinned?

Well, I bought some sheets of white posterboard and delegated that job to The Mister, who did a fabulous job and even made some big fangs as well:

I loved it! But apparently we weren't the only ones who saw that idea, because there were two other cars at our Trunk-or-Treat with teeth:

This decidedly more friendly version,

and this full-on face version, with kids passing out candy from the mouth. Funny!

Some of my favorite costumes from friends this year:

Flo, the Progressive lady. HATE those commercials, but my friend Stephanie looked just like her!

This cute Peter Pan family costume from my friend Brittney. I think this costume theme works best when you have adorable 1-year-old twins.

An amazing, elaborate Lego man costume my friend Annie made for her son, Graham. Holy cow!

And this creepy drowned Titanic victim costume from Keeley, which I am totally going to steal for a costume party someday!

What was the best costume you saw this year?

Halloween 2011: our Scooby Gang costumes

I didn't mean for it to take so long to get these photos posted, but life has just gotten in the way. Today school has been cancelled for snow, which is ironic since on Monday it was 71 degrees. It was like that last week too: nearly 80 on Monday, then 6" of snow on Wednesday. The only reason school wasn't cancelled last week too is that we were already on Fall Break! I am really thankful that last week's snow melted before Halloween and this week's snow held off for 24 hours so that we could enjoy a beautiful sunny Halloween and not even have to wear coats over our costumes.

Speaking of costumes, here's how we dressed up this year:

For a family with a little girl who LOVES Scooby-Doo, this was a natural choice! In fact, we chose this theme before Halloween last year, so I've been thinking of it ever since. Here's a run-down on our costumes:

The Mister as Freddy: wore his own jeans, blue dress shirt and white v-neck sweater. The orange scarf was thrifted (I had to work a little magic to make it the right shape) and the horrible blonde wig was new, but bought at the thrift store.

Maren as Velma: wore a perfect thrifted orange turtleneck sweater and thrifted red skirt. Bought the orange socks at Gymboree. We tried two different wigs but both had issues and she was not feeling great, so in the end we just curled the ends of her hair under and called it good. She also had more square glasses that looked much more Velma-like, but they were an adult size and wouldn't stay on so in the end we went with Harry Potter glasses I had in the costume box. Ah well. She also had a homemade magnifying glass made from a dowel, a thrifted embroidery hoop, black spray paint, and a piece of clear Saran Wrap.

Porter as Shaggy: wore his own brown pants. I thrifted a green turtleneck and when the weather turned out to be so nice that day, I went ahead and cut it into a v-neck to be more authentic. His hair is naturally shaggy, I drew stubble on his chin with an eyeliner pencil, and he gamely carried around a Scooby stuffed animal all night.

Heidi as Daphne: my purple vintage dress was thrifted 7 years ago, so to make it authentic, I simply sewed on two stripes of wide lavender ribbon and then made a headband to match. My green scarf was thrifted, my pink tights (which I didn't think would be quite so lacy) were on super-clearance at JC Penneys and my wig was new but from the thrift store. I couldn't find the right color of shoes at the thrift store, so I just bought a pair and painted them with acrylic paint (which totally cracked when I wore them, but they gave the right effect). The cutouts on the front were made with chipboard that was painted and hot-glued onto the shoes.

Bronco the yellow lab as Scooby: Even Bronco-doggie got in on the act! I made him a Scooby collar using teal ribbon and then made a tag out of teal and metallic gold cardstock that I hung off the ribbon with a binder ring. Bronco went with us to the Trunk-or-Treat, but stayed home for the actual trick-or-treating around the neighborhood.

We got so many nice compliments on our costumes, and I have to not-so-humbly admit that I think we rocked them! I may not be able to sew everything, but I can MacGyver the heck out of some thrift store finds!

I do wish I had just sprung for the $20 Velma costume for Maren, just so that we could have had the child-sized wig and glasses but I was determined to find something cheaper and make it work. Those efforts included one disastrous (new) black wig from the thrift store, and a thrifted blonde wig that I attempted to color brown with a brown Staz-On permanent ink pad, which is an hour of my life I'll never get back, especially since in the end she wore neither.

Even our jack-o'-lanterns were Scooby-themed! Truly, it was a fantastic Halloween and I'm so thankful to have a family (especially a husband!) who will go along with my crazy ideas. I'm already starting to plan our costumes for next year...

Ferb, I know what we're gonna do today

My hair's still green. Three days straight of going to bed with green hair will do that to bleached blonde highlights I guess, even if you use lots of shampoo. Wanna know why my hair was green for four days?

I'm finally living out my fantasy of having group Halloween costumes! It helps to have a husband who's willing to go along with just about anything and kids who are still young enough that I can talk them into dressing up the way I want. :) We decided a few months ago that for Halloween this year, we would dress up as characters from our family's favorite TV show, Phineas and Ferb.

The Mister was evil genius Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz

complete with a Nerf gun  "-inator"

I was Ferb

with green hair courtesy of a can of green hair spray paint (I looked forever for a wig but never could find one)

Maren was Isabella

in a dress made from one of my tank tops, a spray-painted vintage buckle, a wig and a homemade pink bow headband

And Porter was Perry the Platypus

in a costume that I conjured from thin air! Well, not so much thin air as polar fleece, felt, and a ping pong ball.

I actually made Porter's costume all by myself with no pattern and I don't mind telling you that I'm a little bit proud of it. I used an existing shirt and pants of his to get the size and drew my own pattern. I sewed a matching hood and attached two halves of a painted ping pong ball with painted eyeballs that pointed in opposite directions for authenticity. I used tan felt to make his tail and sewed across it in a crosshatch pattern with brown thread and pinned it to the back of his pants. The bill and feet were made from yellow felt and the bill was stuffed with batting. It was pretty darn hilarious and anyone who has seen the show knew exactly who he was supposed to be!

We got good mileage out of our costumes, wearing them for what felt like three days straight but was actually five separate occasions over four days. The only things we had to buy were my green hair spray, The Mister's lab coat (something we can probably use again or resell), a $6 Wal Mart wig and $5 white turtleneck for Maren (which she can wear this winter), the Phineas doll (since we ran out of family members) and the materials for Porter's costume (the hood & tail are detachable so he can wear the fleece suit this winter). It all turned out just exactly like I pictured it in my head and we got so many fun comments from people who knew who we were supposed to be!

Maren already told me who she wants to be next year, so I have a whole year to keep an eye out for the right pieces at the thrift stores--it should be fun!

Halloween 2009
Halloween 2008

Halloween roundup

I love Halloween, but every year I'm glad when it's over. Whew! On Friday night we had our annual Halloween party. This year's theme was the Haunted Library and we asked our guests to come in costume as someone from a book. They complied and came up with the most clever costumes! We had:

the Princess and the Pea (two of these actually--one princess and her baby as the pea, and one princess and her husband wearing a big green letter P),

Little Red Riding Hood & Robert E. Lee, Curious George & the Man in the Yellow Hat, Hester Prynne & Dimmesdale from The Scarlet Letter, the Evil Queen from Snow White & her poisoned apple, Where's Waldo & Wanda, Arthur Dent from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy & Mother Goose, two characters from a Terry Pratchett series, and not pictured is Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Here's The Mister and me:The Mister is dressed as Greg Mortenson from Three Cups of Tea (he's missing his tea cup), and I'm Waldo. With all the books out there, what are the chances that we'd have two Waldos? My first idea was to be Nancy Drew, but I didn't come up with that plan until Tuesday morning and I knew with the impending snowstorm that I wouldn't be able to put together a costume in time, so I went with Waldo instead--I already had the striped shirt in my closet. The party was fun and I'm so glad everyone came and dressed up!

It was so nice to have Halloween on a Saturday this year. Somehow it felt less rushed--that is, up until 4:00 pm, where we rushed around like maniacs for 90 minutes trying to put together costumes before heading out the door to our church's Trunk or Treat party!
I will fully admit that dressing up as the characters from Alice in Wonderland is something I've wanted to do for years, but I'm brunette and I never could convince anyone to be Alice to my Queen of Hearts. I think this may have been the last year that I could suggest to Maren what she was going to dress as, so I had to take advantage of it and make her be my Alice! Originally I purchased a pattern at a thrift and was going to sew her an Alice dress myself. That brilliant idea lasted about five minutes, until I remembered that I don't sew, especially when putting in gathered sleeves and a zipper are involved. Thank goodness for eBay and the Disney store.I couldn't decide if I wanted Porter to be the White Rabbit or the Cheshire Cat. It would likely have been easier to find him a ready-made bunny costume, but I have a thing for the Cheshire Cat so that won. I had to get creative for this one, as they don't sell a ready-made C.C. costume for infants. Instead I bought a pink kitty cat costume (thanks again, eBay) and a roll of purple duct tape from the craft store and I made my own stripes!Okay, so it's not perfect but you get the idea, right? And at least he was warm!The Mister and I whipped our costumes together pretty much at the last minute. I had planned to be the Queen of Hearts and borrowed the foofy red dress from a friend. I used a tiara from Maren's 2008 costume and a red sequined heart from my craft stash for the crown and made a heart scepter with Maren's fairy princess wand, red cardstock and red glass glitter. I wore a black wig and made the white collar out of white posterboard that The Mister taped to the inside of my shirt collar as we were walking out the door.

I love The Mister's costume--it was an idea we had that morning and he was able to construct using only what we had in the house. He MacGyver-ed together his card guard suit using a cardboard box, and old sheet, coat hangers, a stapler and duct tape and I think he looks pretty darn good! He was nice and warm too, which is good because he took Maren out trick-or-treating in the snow while I stayed warm with Porter at a neighbor's house.

Now to get it all cleaned up and on to the next big project!