This year I took on a slightly larger costume undertaking than I have in previous years. Evan was very adamant that his little sister should be Cinderella for Halloween this year. I originally had thought I'd make her a martian and then do up the big stroller as a spaceship (spoiler: a good chance this is what she may be next year if I still have any input on her costumes) - as trick-or-treating with a REALLY long legged almost 6 year old and shortie 2.5 year old seemed it could be a big of struggle managing everyone, so I really wanted to keep up with building wheels into her costume as it has worked so well in the previous years, so when he suggested Cinderella, I immediately thought "dingdingding, we have a winner - I could totally make the joyrider into a carriage! Great idea, Evan!" - and so that is how Bethanny's 2015 costume came to be decided.
Then things kind of snowballed from there. A girlfriend of mine asked me to do up a fairy godmother costume for her to wear to a fundraiser she was going to. I'm such an amateur sewer that I was very reluctant to take on that task knowing how long it would take me, and how painful the project would be... but then I realized that I could totally use the costume too, so selfish Karen decided "okay, surrrrrre." It's all about Karen, you know? Do I have a blog post titled that yet? I really should rename this blog from iwishiwasakeener to allaboutkaren.
ANYWAYS!! Now for Evan. He's still a little #craycray for the superheroes, especially the Avengers, and currently Hawkeye is his super favorite, so he REALLY wanted to be Hawkeye. Hawkeye is gaining a lot of popularity with the kiddos these days, but he isn't mainstream enough to be able to really find/buy costumes for him yet. He's just making it into the action figure world, really. Mark my word, next year there will be 1000s of Hawkeye trickortreators running around. Anyways, initially I was pretty excited you couldn't buy a Hawkeye costume, because that meant that for once I would get to make Evan's!! I later came to really regret that enthusiasm and excitement because once I got him all jazzed up on the idea, he was holding me to it. It worked out in the end, and I just ate through all my feelings (anxiety, frustration, anger). The great thing is, chocolate solves all problems... well, other than the problem of tight jeans. (Diet starts Monday.) For Daddy - He took a bit of convincing to participate - but in the end he choose to wear the hulk mask/hands from Evan's tickle trunk. Easy!peasy!
Okay enough with the blahblahblahhing, and onto some pictures and basic guidelines of what I created.
I'll start with Fairy Godmother, because I did it first. I'm not doing to get into too much detail on it, because, trust me, I am not the one to tell people how to sew. I fucking hate sewing. I'm way more about the glue gun. You know how some people are "clickers" on the computer - click randomly and don't wait for the computer to respond, before clicking somewhere else, and then when the computer catches up it goes bizerk trying to like 10 tasks at once? Well, I basically do that sewing - I'm soooo not patient enough to be a sewer....
Now, to prove that point. Some people make, and follow patterns. Not me. There is no instant gratification with doing that… so what I did instead was bastardized this:
That is a Christmas tree skirt. I basically sewed an oversized Xmas tree skirt, and added a hood to it, and made wide strings to tie up into the big bow. Clever, eh? The skirt was a basssssic skirt with a tie up waist. Oh and I used a blue flat sheet (King) from Walmart, to save on some material costs. They didn't have pink sheets dammit. Bedsheets are way cheaper than fabric.
Final result:
AMAZING, right?
Okay, here it is:
Next, I did Cinderella. If I could remake that costume, it would be killer. I made SO MUCH extra work for myself putting this one together, I could kick myself. It was frustrating. I tried to attach the top to a body suit so it would be less scratchy and did several attempts which did not work out - in the end, it passed for a costume, but if I could do it again, I would just use a blue body suit, and attach the sleeves to it, or, if I couldnt find one, a blue tank, add sleeves, OR, as a last resort MAKE a blue tube top, and attach the sleeves. I would NOT suggest using a body suit as a base. What a pain in the ass that decision was.
here are some photos of what DIDNT work... Only adding them because although the dress was ugly, the model IS ADORABLE:
This version was such a disaster - it bunched up, and moved around, and you could see through it, etc etc etc. It was a wreak.
I basically ended up sewing a tube top to the body suit, again hoping that the body suit would shield Beth from some of the scratchiness - which I'm not convinced it actually did, and what it saved in scratchiness wasn't worth the trade of the awkwardness of putting this on her. Then attached tulle to create some cap sleeves... Finally, I made a tulle skirt for the bottom half. (sooo many posts/videos online to show how to make these, just google "how to make a tulle tutu" End result was super cute, despite the pain of the learning curve to create it..
Finally, I did the carriage. The carriage was the easiest of all the costumes I did. SO EASY and it certainly had a punchy end result.
I literally just covered it in a queen sized white flat sheet we already had and used clear packing tape to secure it in place. Added another pink flatsheet (again that we already had) to make the tied back curtains... I used a zip ties to separate the gathered areas, and to attach to the stroller. Next, I covered it with 3 packages of battery opperated twinkle lights that my inlaws leant me (thanks mom and dad)... again, taping them in place... I then covered it with 2 tubes of silver sheer tulle like material that I found at dollarama which - you used it, I taped on. To finish it off, I covered the stroller wheels with foamboard (dollarstore) that I had cut and painted to look like the cinderella carriage wheels, and attached them with zip ties again and added a crown on top which I made with my cricut and then laminated give it some sturdiness... I added another bunch of lights into the center of the crown, and taped er all down.... The whole thing cost me like 5 bucks and it was super functional and ridiculously cute.
It started looking a bit rough by the end of the night, but considering I had a toddler climbing in and out of it all evening, and we cut through a narrow path with bushes on each side... it held up very well.
And. Just these ones are because I'm a keener: BIPPITY, BOPPITY BOO
