livlife
Welcome to Livlife. Where I am living my life out loud, for all to read.
halloweenDo you know how much I love Halloween?
I really do. I think it is such a fun holiday. This year, for the first time, my mom has my nephew and she and I are taking him trick-or-treating. Therefore, we needed a costume.
When my siblings and I were growing up, my mom made us costumes. To me, that became part of the fun of Halloween. You figure out what you want to be and then you figure out how to make that. Most years mom helped/did most of the work, but as I got older (say jr high and high school) I would make my own costumes.
This has become tradition to me and I think it is appalling that people just buy costumes. And they are junk! They are so cheaply made it is a wonder they last the whole night--much less year after year. (My mother made matching clown costumes for Nick and I when we were tiny and then the next year I think Zack and I wore them and then I am pretty sure Zack and Emily wore them. They lasted several years and four kids!) But, this is me and evidently it is not for everyone.
When we knew we had Simon, my mom and I went shopping. She wanted to buy him a costume and it took me only a few minutes to talk her out of it. After seeing the crap that passes for costumes these days (for $35 a pop and more!) she was more than willing to tackle the build-a-costume project of days gone by. Mind you, it has been years and YEARS since she last made a costume.
Simon finally decided (and by decided I mean he said it once and we took it as a decision) that he wanted to be a bee. Mom and I went around and purchased all the items needed to make the costume. We had a plan of how we would do it, but somehow things didn't go as planned. It ended up being that I, the fabulous auntie extraordinaire, made the entire costume. My mom kept offering her help, but I was sure I had it under control.
Let's just be clear: check the title of the blog.
Martha Stewart, I am not. This means I have never been convicted of a white collar crime, nor do I have the skills and ability to sew a bee costume by hand.
Lucky for me, I am smart and I am creative, I managed to figure it out. My mother was smart enough to buy materials that are flexible enough to be beaten on and used in a variety of ways and I was able to pull it altogether. And it only took me about 6.5 hours.
Yeesh.
Honestly, the hardest part was making the wings, but once I had one wing done, the second was considerably easier. Then there were the problems. Busted thread, pulling the antennae off the hat AFTER it was finished and then having to figure out how to reattach it, glue that wouldn't hold, gluing the wrong side of the wing so it was backwards, et cetera.
Still, after all that time and all those tribulations, I had an absolute blast. I loved making this little costume that he will wear for Halloween. I am so excited to get him inside of it and take pictures of him. So excited was I that after all was said and done, I dug out and old oversized doll from childhood and dressed Jasper up in Simon's costume. Now I know what the whole thing looks like all put together.
Jasper looks pretty cute, but I am betting Simon wins, hands-down. Plus, the costume will actually FIT Simon.
So stay tuned for the official Halloween pictures and make certain that all the comments are about how cute the COSTUME is...not the wearer.
(Ok, I'm kidding--my nephew is adorable, all comments welcome).
And look out Martha, a bit more practice and I'll be taking over! (Hopefully not the prison part, but the multi-millionaire part...be happy to!)
Happy All Hallows Eve Eve!
I really do. I think it is such a fun holiday. This year, for the first time, my mom has my nephew and she and I are taking him trick-or-treating. Therefore, we needed a costume.
When my siblings and I were growing up, my mom made us costumes. To me, that became part of the fun of Halloween. You figure out what you want to be and then you figure out how to make that. Most years mom helped/did most of the work, but as I got older (say jr high and high school) I would make my own costumes.
This has become tradition to me and I think it is appalling that people just buy costumes. And they are junk! They are so cheaply made it is a wonder they last the whole night--much less year after year. (My mother made matching clown costumes for Nick and I when we were tiny and then the next year I think Zack and I wore them and then I am pretty sure Zack and Emily wore them. They lasted several years and four kids!) But, this is me and evidently it is not for everyone.
When we knew we had Simon, my mom and I went shopping. She wanted to buy him a costume and it took me only a few minutes to talk her out of it. After seeing the crap that passes for costumes these days (for $35 a pop and more!) she was more than willing to tackle the build-a-costume project of days gone by. Mind you, it has been years and YEARS since she last made a costume.
Simon finally decided (and by decided I mean he said it once and we took it as a decision) that he wanted to be a bee. Mom and I went around and purchased all the items needed to make the costume. We had a plan of how we would do it, but somehow things didn't go as planned. It ended up being that I, the fabulous auntie extraordinaire, made the entire costume. My mom kept offering her help, but I was sure I had it under control.
Let's just be clear: check the title of the blog.
Martha Stewart, I am not. This means I have never been convicted of a white collar crime, nor do I have the skills and ability to sew a bee costume by hand.
Lucky for me, I am smart and I am creative, I managed to figure it out. My mother was smart enough to buy materials that are flexible enough to be beaten on and used in a variety of ways and I was able to pull it altogether. And it only took me about 6.5 hours.
Yeesh.
Honestly, the hardest part was making the wings, but once I had one wing done, the second was considerably easier. Then there were the problems. Busted thread, pulling the antennae off the hat AFTER it was finished and then having to figure out how to reattach it, glue that wouldn't hold, gluing the wrong side of the wing so it was backwards, et cetera.
Still, after all that time and all those tribulations, I had an absolute blast. I loved making this little costume that he will wear for Halloween. I am so excited to get him inside of it and take pictures of him. So excited was I that after all was said and done, I dug out and old oversized doll from childhood and dressed Jasper up in Simon's costume. Now I know what the whole thing looks like all put together.
Jasper looks pretty cute, but I am betting Simon wins, hands-down. Plus, the costume will actually FIT Simon.
So stay tuned for the official Halloween pictures and make certain that all the comments are about how cute the COSTUME is...not the wearer.
(Ok, I'm kidding--my nephew is adorable, all comments welcome).
And look out Martha, a bit more practice and I'll be taking over! (Hopefully not the prison part, but the multi-millionaire part...be happy to!)
Happy All Hallows Eve Eve!
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