Happy Halloween!!!!!

As promised, here's the picture of everyone in their Halloween-y goodness! I sweated and cried over these things, so I'm quite proud of the outcome!

Turtle turtle

Is my dog not turtle-y enough for the turtle club? Lol, sorry I had to! Today I started and finished our dog Willy's costume. It came out just how I envisioned it would! My favorite part is that it worked up super quick. I used a dog pattern as my base and went from there. Simplicity 2839 , I used the pattern for the cow and lion, and just used the colors I needed instead.

First I made the base in a light green fleece, and the hood in a yellow felt. Needless to say, Willy was not amused.... yet. Then I cut out some white felt eyes, drew the pupils on with black sharpie, and glued them on with tacky glue. As you can tell, tacky glue is a favorite of mine! For the shell, I just drew an oval the size of the length of the costume, and a smaller one (about half the size) to go under it. I used white knit fabric to make the tubing that goes around the shell. To make the tubing I folded a length of fabric in half, sewed a straight line down the fabric, and then stuffed it like a sausage. I didn't really use measurements here, just went by looks. I hand sewed the shell and tubing together, stuffing the shell as I went along. When the shell was done, I hand sewed it to the top of the costume, and ta-da instant Koopa Troopa!

Being that Willy's a yorkie we usually walk him using a harness, but there is no way it's going on with his costume, so we'll be using a collar. And since Willy sports a puppy cut, and is pretty much bald (for a yorkie) the fleece will keep him nice and warm.

Details details

Just because I'm a stickler for details, I had to give our costumes that extra umph lol. So I made the kids trick or treat bags that look like coin blocks! I did a google search, and found this picture of a quilt and pillow. I used that as my base for my bags.

Each square on the quilt, I made into a 1 inch cube, and went from there. I cut it out of paper first, to use as a pattern. Then I cut my pieces out of orange and black felt.

I made the bags out of yellow felt, and gave the bottoms a box pleat so that they would hold a good amount of candy. Then I sewed on the question marks, and added handles. I don't have pictures of the bags completely done, but you'll see at the big unveiling!

My mom found white gloves at the t-shirt store, and at $1 a pair what a steal! All I did was use some black acrylic paint mixed with fabric medium, and painted lines on them. Ta da, isn't it just great what a few small details can do?

My daughter is the ba-bomb!!!!

Olivia's costume is officially finished, so I'm going to give you a quick chronicle of how I did her costume.

First, I took a punch balloon and made the hubby blow it up. I got a 4 pack of them at Target for $1.99 in the party aisle. We lost 2 of the balloons because they popped from being blown up too much. I covered the balloon in paper mache (flour and water mix). Here it is drying.

Ignore the kids jumping off the couch, it was a hectic month for us..... I mean me, after all I did make 7 costumes!


Second, after 3 layers of paper mache it was finally hard enough to pop the balloon. I cut 2 holes in it to start, 1 for her legs to go through, and 1 for her head to go through. I measured her head for the top hole, and added 2 inches to that, to make sure her head would fit comfortably through it. For the second hole I measured her at her widest part (around her bottom), and added 3 inches to that to make sure she would fit through that and have a bit of room to move her legs. Then I tried it on her.


It fit great! So next, I marked where her arms were. Just like I did with her head and leg holes, I measured her arms and added 2 inches to that. Look mom, I have arms!!!!



I sanded around the holes with medium grain sandpaper, so that it wouldn't be rough and bother her. I also sanded down the large lumps that the flour collected in random spots. It was still pretty lumpy after the sanding, but eh I tried! So after the sanding, the hubby spray painted it black. I used a cheap $.96 can of black glossy spray paint from walmart, and it worked great. We did about 3 coats to make sure we covered the newspaper completely, and ot make it super shiny.Then I just cut large ovals out of white felt, and glued them on the front with tacky glue. The glue dried clear and you couldn't see it when it dried.

Lastly, I made her some yellow shoe covers (which I don't have pictures of ), and a hat. The hat is supposed to be the top of the ba-bomb, and the wick. For the shoe covers I just took her shoe and turned it on it's side and traced it out twice. Then I sewed the 2 halves together and voila! For the hat, I just measured around her head, and then for the height I measured from her forehead to her hair. Then I cut a circle using the lid to an old butter container. I sewed it all together, and hemmed the bottom. For the wick I just cut a bunch of strands of white yarn and used tacky glue to glue them all together. Once they were all glued together and stiff, I glued them to the top middle of the hat. When everything was dry, I painted the very tip red to give her the look that she was just lit lol. So there you have it, my ba-bomb! Check back on Halloween for the complete picture!

Mario Bros

This is what my kids want to be for Halloween, and I'm glad to oblige. Raymond (since he's tall and skinny) will be Luigi (3rd row down, 5th over). Orion (since he's shorter) will be Mario (2nd row down, 5th over). Olivia (cause she's just the exploding type, lol) will be a ba-bomb (1st row, 6th over). Our dog Willy (just cause we can) will be a Koopa Troopa (last row, 3rd over).


Here's the top part of the first pair of overalls. I basically just took the bodice part of a dress pattern (shhh, don't tell the boys), modified it for the back part, and added straps.

I bought the boys shirts from walmart for $4.50 each. Here's Orion modeling his overalls with his Mario shirt on. I did the hats using an Eddie cap tutorial, but I couldn't get the pleats to work for me. I just sewed around my hexagon shape and gathered it to fit. I cut out circles from white felt, drew the corresponding letters, and hand stitched them in place. I didn't take any pictures of the finished hats, so enjoy these with the letters pinned on!


Luigi hatMario hat As you can tell, Raymond was being camera shy lol. That's it for now, stay tuned for my grand unveiling of the whole gang!

Queen of Hearts and Alice in Wonderland Costume Set GIVEAWAY!!!!

Okay, I'm so not one to enter contests or giveaways... I suppose it has something to do with the fact that A) I probably won't win or B) I feel like I'm begging for charity. But I feel the need to enter this giveaway because how adorable would my girly look in either of these dresses? I can see it now, parading down the street with her feeling all regal in a pretty poofy dress. For having 2 older brothers, my daughter is as girly as they come. So here's to chance and hoping, and who knows, maybe I will win!


Queen of Hearts and Alice in Wonderland Costume Set GIVEAWAY!!!!

Summer!

So I've been out of summer classes for the last 2 weeks, and I've been living it up with the kids. The friday after finals I took the kids and their friend Jojo to the natural science and history museum. They had so much fun! We did our rounds of the museum first, and let me tell you it is not easy keeping up after 4 very active kids. Either way, we had a blast and learned a lot. We went into the dinosaur exhibit right at the perfect time, and caught the dinosaur show. It was really a person in the neatest costume I've ever seen, but I had the kids convinced that it was a real life dinosaur. Kids being kids, and with movies like Jurassic Park and Night at the Museum, definitely helped. They treated the dinosaur like it was pet (think dog), and the boys tried to be brave and sit on the floor with the rest of the group. Next thing I know, they brought the dinosaur in, and all 3 boys were hiding behind me while the girl was clutching onto me for dear life. We chased it back to it's "cave" but sadly I couldn't get any good pictures of it, tons of other people had the same idea as me.

After that we hit up the kids center for some hands on play. They got together and all 4 of them cleaned out the excavating pit with buckets and paint brushes. Here's Raymond digging in the pit.

And the girl just loved throwing the "dirt" out of the pit and directing the other kids on where to go and what to do.

And Orion had a blast trying to build a dinosaur skeleton out of bones. He was so into it that I hated to drag him away.

After the museum we headed to the pet store, that way Jojo can get hands on with some more exotic animals. The boys ran around and were holding snakes, tarantula's, and pinkie's.

On Tuesday we went to kidspace museum and had so much fun there too. Unfortunetly I don't have any pictures of that, because it was so crowded there that I had to focus on where the kids were. This week we haven't done much because I'm a bit more focused this week on finding a job. Sadly, my financial aid was cancelled, so I must find work to help support us. Fall classes are slowly creeping up as well as back to school to the boys also, so I've got a ton to get ready for. I'm hoping to get to at least 1 museum this week, and a park with the water play areas, but I'd like to give the house another really good scrub down before we start the next couple of busy months.