Search Results for: costume

Happy Halloween!

Leave a Comment / Life, Sock Animals, The Nesting Spot /

I hope you have a fun day!  We’ll be going to our church’s annual Fall Festival.  It’s going to be really great.  We carved our pumpkins on Saturday and the kids seemed to enjoy it.  Of course, I couldn’t keep the little one from eating the pumpkin.  Oh well, she’s eaten a lot worse.

To get in the Halloween mood take a look at some pretty sweet costumes over at one of my favorite sites, Modern Kiddo!  I was honored to have mine included in their annual costume parade!   I am always amazed by people’s creativity.

Here is a sneak peak of my 5 ft. creatures that will make their debut this week.  I am pretty excited about them.  

The other day we were pushing the kids on swings at the park and a bunch of college students ran by on brooms on their way to practice quidditch.  That is certainly something you don’t see every day.  Apparently, the college here has its own quidditch team.  Makes me laugh every time I think about it.

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Little Ladybug

2 Comments / DIY, Gifts, Life, Sewing /

My poor kids rarely benefit from my non-stop toy making.  Two days ago Josiah suddenly asked if I would make him a ladybug.  I figured he was wanting some kind of sock animal and didn’t want to make one, especially since his birthday is nearing.  But after he also started asking for broccoli and other foods I realized he was thinking of when I have made him felt food in the past.  So, at 11:30 pm when I was closing up shop for the night I grabbed my stash of cheap felt and found some red fleece scraps left over from Audrey’s strawberry costume that I made her last year.  There was just enough to cut two small ovals.  I then cut a couple pieces from the black felt and hand sewed a little lady bug together.  I was even too lazy to get up and go in the next room to grab a bit of fluff so I cut up some more fleece and stuffed it inside.

It turned out to be a perfect size for him to hold in his hand and put in his pocket.  Plus the fleece is super soft.  He found it yesterday morning where I had left it out and he didn’t put it down all day.  He has even slept with it.  Who knew that a few minutes and some scraps could make a kid so happy.  You can see in the picture that it is already looking well loved.

And it helps me feel like a good mom to actually make something for my own child for once.

Coming soon is a post about my 10 year college reunion that we went to this past weekend and a shop update or two.  Plus it is time for some more great etsy finds.

Do any of you ever have about 20 things on your list that all need to be done right now?  I feel like that at the moment and it is of course impossible to get all of the things done at the same time.  It is hard to choose what should come first.

Oh, and one last thing, my son’s birthday is mid November and he has suddenly requested to have a snake themed party.  I am not sure how to make it fun and friendly for all ages.  Plus, there will probably be more girls than boys there.  But I guess at their age, most of the girls probably still like snakes.  I am thinking of making it more reptile/amphibiany.  It is all going to be pretty low key though as far as decorating etc. goes this year because we are doing it at one of those jumpy places.  I am all about less work at this time of year.

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Fall is in the Air

2 Comments / DIY, Life, Sewing, Thrifty Finds /

I saw two things out my window yesterday.  The first one was a bit shocking at first because when I saw it from afar I thought it was the beginning of a birds nest.  I couldn’t believe the birds had done so much, so fast, without me seeing them.  But as I focused on it I realized it was a GIANT moth, probably about the size of my hand.  The picture doesn’t do it justice since there is nothing next to it for scale.  I kept telling Ken he needed to put his face in the picture but he wouldn’t play along.  I guess the moth (which I have seen before at our house in the past) was just trying to stay out of what is in the next picture.

Rain!  Glorious rain!  We haven’t seen this stuff in way too long.  And this wasn’t one of those 10 minute puny rains that we’ve gotten this summer but an actual downpour for hours rain.  Our yard is still damp and muddy from it.  We were woken up by the sound of it during the night and it was the happiest sound ever.  The day before I had the kids with me in Austin to get some fabric for Audrey’s halloween costume and it started to rain as we were getting out of the car.  Audrey stuck her tongue out to catch the mysterious stuff.  Poor girl has only seen it rain a few times in her life.

Oooh, did someone say halloween costume?!  Why yes I did.  I bought this cute little vintage dress off of etsy for a good price.  And then we took a ride to Joann fabric’s to buy some pretty red corduroy to make a hooded cape.  Any guesses as to what she’ll be?  I loved that I got a dress that can be worn again as a regular dress.  And I went a little crazy on the fabric buying so her cape is going to be much nicer than it needs to be and will probably be able to be passed down to her children.

I was all set to make a similar cape for Josiah to be Sherlock Holmes because the boy loves him and all things detective and mysterious.  But we went to Goodwill as soon as they started selling halloween costumes back at the end of September to see what cheap alternatives they had and we found a cool dragon costume.  It was marked $16 dollars but had orange highlighter marked over it so I asked what that meant and the guy said that it just meant that it was from last year and didn’t change the price but he would give it to me for $10.  So, I figured even if Josiah still ended up being Sherlock, he would have an awesome costume to dress up in.  So, while at Joann’s I went ahead and picked up some suiting material to make him a sherlock costume for either halloween or just for play.  He loves dressing up so it’ll get a lot of use.  And since his birthday is fast approaching I can give it to him then if I want.

Here are the tutorials I’ll be using to make the attire.  You can click on the pictures to see them.

Ok, so I want to hear.  What are your little ones going to be?  Are you going to dress up to?

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The Big Reveal

3 Comments / DIY, Life, Sewing, Thrifty Finds /

I am sorry to keep you all awake at night wondering how The Lord of the Rings costumes came out.  So, to put you all at ease here is a picture of how we looked and some of the other costumes.

If you missed my first post you can go here to see what we bought to put our costumes together to go to a Lord of the Rings trivia/costume party.

I was most pleased with how Josiah’s outfit came out.  His little pants were so easy and fit him great.  I also ended up using a cut off tab top from the curtain as a sword sheath which I safety pinned to the little pants.  The shirt we got him from the thrift store was actually a size 6 even though he is 3 but it still fit him pretty well.

We had enough leftover curtain from Ken’s cloak to make one for Josiah.  Both were SO easy to make.  I made Ken’s from the bottom of the curtain and just hemmed the edge where I cut it.  I then ran a ribbon through what had been the original bottom hem to tie around Ken’s neck…and DONE!  I also used a pin that was my mom’s from probably the 60’s or 70’s to act as the little elvish leaf brooch.  For Josiah’s cloak I was patting myself on the back because I used two of the tabs as the way to fasten the cloak on him.  All I did was sew a little velcro onto them and hem up the sides I cut and voila, another cloak!  To make it the right width for his shoulders I made it 3 tabs wide but just cut off the middle tab (and that is what became the sheath).  I’m sure that is all clear as mud.

For mine, I took the sleeves off of the hideous jacket and sewed them onto the dress since all the dresses in the movies have sleeves. Of course their sleeves are super long and so are the dresses, so my dress was more of an homage to the movie instead of trying to be literal.  I also took the 4 buttons off of the jacket and sewed them on the dress for a little flair.  The belt I wore really low to mimic a belt worn by one of the ladies in the movie, can’t remember which one right now.

The party was really fun and some of the students really got into dressing up. I was proud of them for not being too cool to go all out.

These guys blew me away because not only did they bring real swords but they made their own cloaks!  Yea for guys sewing!

Nothing like a happy family taking a picture in the background while a gruesome death is under way in the foreground!

There were others with equally awesome costumes but I had to steal most of these pictures off of facebook and so I don’t have photos of everyone.

The night was a lot of fun.  We had homemade gumbo with rice, french bread, and salad and then for dessert bread pudding.  It all seemed to go well with the theme and it was oh so delicious.  The Lord of the Rings trivial pursuit game is what we played and it is ridiculously hard.  I gave it to Ken years ago and we’ve only played it once I believe because we couldn’t get half the questions right.  I guess that is how trivial pursuit normally is though.

Poor Josiah didn’t get to bed that night until 11:30 but he did awesome and had a great time.  And of course he was up at 7:30 the next morning ready to go.  I wonder how old the kids will be when they start to sleep in?

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Thrift Shop Fun

1 Comment / DIY, Thrifty Finds /

The four of us ventured into town today to run a couple errands.  First on the list was to stop by one of our local thrift stores that has the cheapest clothes that I have found in town.  I always go there when I am in the market for a costume.  Our college group has been watching Lord of the Rings over the summer together and this Friday we are going to have a trivia game/costume party.  Since I don’t like to spend money on items that will most likely never be worn again, this little thrift store is perfect.  Most items are between $1 and $3.  Josiah will be going with us and we got items for all three of us to wear for $17.

Let me show you what we got.

1 and 2 – This is the dress I got for myself. It’ll definitely need some tweeking.  I’m not sure exactly what I’ll do with it but it gives me a starting place.  That jacket will not be worn but it gives me extra fabric to play with.

3 – This is the romper thing I got for Josiah.  It is 24 months size but that isn’t a problem for my 3 year old because I am going to cut it in half and add elastic to the wide waist to make little breeches (those short little pants that go to about the knee that they used to wear a long time ago).  We also got him a white dress shirt that he’ll wear with it since all the ones he has are too small.  I might add a vest that he already owns to it as well.  He’ll probably be like a little hobbit or something.

4 – We got these birkenstock clogs for Ken and the pants are for him as well.  They were in the scrub section but I am not sure if that is what they really are.  The waist will have to be taken in and I’ll probably shorten them to make pants similar to Josiah’s.  He already has a rennaissance looking shirt from high school choir.  I am not sure what else we’ll do.  The belt in the picture is for my dress.

5 – This one is a tab top curtain that will become a cape for Ken.

6 – This was a dress I found that I liked for wearing in real life.  I haven’t tried it on yet and it may need to be taken in but I thought it was fun.

7 – This was one lucky find!  How often do you run across He-Man items?  This is going to my good friend Beth because her kids love He-Man.  So Beth, if you are reading this, I hope you’re excited.  I used to pretend I was He-Man when I was a little girl.  Did anybody else do that?

8 – This is a vintage sheet that I got to add to my sewing stash and for a quarter who can beat the price!?  It might make a cute dress for Audrey or a blanket or something.

So, there you have it.  Pretty much everything we got will need to be altered in some way.  Most of them are too big or need to be shortened etc.  But it is all totally doable with items we already have at home.  I will just have to channel all the skills I have learned from Marissa on New Dress A Day.

Once we get all dressed up, if the outfits come together, I’ll post a picture….if you’re lucky.

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