Costumes Unveiled and Freaky Spider

So.

This year was a bit of a let-down for costumes.  Because my brother makes such a  big deal about his Halloween party, and goes to such extent to make it well-planned and intricate, I enjoy thinking about themed costumes for our family.  I had decided pretty soon after Halloween last year that this year we would all be Peter Pan characters.  It was perfect, Hook, Wendy, Peter Pan & Tinkerbell.  Then when we decided to have Iris along, she would have been a great Tiger Lily.  However, there were two pieces of information I didn't have:

1) The Frog is now old enough to be opinionated about his costume

2)  My brother decided not to throw a party this year :(

Sadly, I didn't know about either of these things until after I had already started buying materials for Hook and Tinkerbell.  SO Jay ended up being a half-hearted pirate and Peach was Tinkerbell.  (as well as every other girl under 5...)

So, my unveiling is very anticlimactic for me this year.  le sigh.

Luckily, I did get a fantastic deal on the fabric for this dress, since it was the end of the bolt.  The tulle was from a 6" roll at Zurcher's.

I was excited to see that I just happened to have this button in my stash of extra buttons from clothes you buy.  (this particular one is from a sparkly green 3/4 sleeve bolero, in case you were wondering)

After trying her in wings and seeing how much she HATED them, I debated trying to attach small wings to the back of her dress somehow.  BUT when I noticed the Halloween store I bought the wings from didn't take returns (lame) I realized if I bent the top of the wings to a curve slightly, they no longer hit her head and Peach would tolerate them.  (phew)

This awesome little thing is the puff for her toes.  Sadly, the gold dress shoes I ordered online, didn't make it here in time, so we just had her wear sneakers.

I have to thank Iris for doing an excellent job on them.  And to think she had never made pompoms before!

As soon as The Frog told me he wanted to be a ghost, I had visions of tantrums and trodden and discarded white fabric since those darn eye holes are so hard to see through.  (plus, how do you eat?)  So this was my solution:

Ghost costume

I used some silky fabric I got for free a few years ago and bought something sheer  to go over his head.  I basically cut a hole in the middle of a rounded rectangle and put in some elastic.  As you can see below, I sewed an elastic strap to go under his chin to keep the "veil" on.  Then if he wanted to get rid of it to eat, etc. it could just hang behind him from his neck.  It worked pretty well!  I like that this is pretty gender neutral and could be used for a fairly wide range of ages.

Here's the hideous women's jacket I found at the DI that just screamed "Captain Hook" when I saw it.  I removed the collar and buttons and cut off about 6 inches from the bottom.  Then I rehemmed, added gold and used the bottom to make big cuffs.  Then I sewed two big decorative buttons to the cuffs.

Before:

After

The shirt underneath was just a white collared shirt from Savers and I also removed the collar and sewed 3 pieces of gathered lace to the front, and added some gathered lace around the cuffs.

I decided not to dress up this year and go as a witch.  (hehe)  It was high time I bought me a witch's hat anyway- I feel like it is an answering-the-door staple. I found an awesome one at Halloween city for about $6.  I pulled out some orange ribbon from some wedding shower gift of long ago and cute-ified my hat.  I'm not fully dressed yet- this pic was taken before going to a little kids party.

scary witch- eee eee eeee

And finally, the season wouldn't be complete without a picture of this HUGE spider hanging out on our porch.

Yeah.
The Frog caught it for me in a jar and we brought it to our Mother's Group Halloween party.  (why I was dressed up)

A lot of people were sick and I was enjoying myself too much to remember to take too many pictures, but I did snap a shot.

Tinkerbell and the only non-Tinkerbell girl there.  Serious.

Ah yes, so The Frog decided at the last minute that he wanted to be Spiderman instead.

The kids made these little spider cookies.  I thought they were really cute!