9.27.2010

What are you going to be...

for Halloween?

It started with Emily (anyone surprised?) going through a costume express magazine that had come in the mail. After going through it page by page by page very carefully she came and showed me what she wanted to be. It was a cute and fun pirate costume. For the low low prices of $60 before tax and shipping. Not going to happen in our house.
Don't get me wrong we love Halloween. LOVE. IT. But we love it cheaply. The goal is to have a lot of fun putting together a great costume for a cheaply as possible. So we start super early and we hunt for great finds at goodwill stores and through what we already have at home.
Last year Emily's Halloween costume cost us $10. The umbrella we got as a souvenir at the Broadway show so it was luck that she chose to be Mary Poppins. Everything else came from our closet, Goodwill, and her grandmother's closet. Palmer's costume was a little more at $20 because we bought him some fireman rain boots from Target to complete the outfit. He still wears them. In fact this summer it was almost impossible to get him to wear anything else. He LOVED them.
So back to the pirate costume. As I looked at the costume I started to put together some thoughts. I remembered that MIL might have some red tulle leftover from Bret's sister's wedding. I started to make a list of what all Emily would need to complete her pirate costume (based on the picture she showed me). Things like a tulle tutu skirt, a peasant type shirt, a corset vest, black boots, a scarf/hat, jewelry, etc. When we were in KS I scored big time with a brand new bolt of red tulle (I have a few other plans for this awesome find). I talked to Emily and made sure she was going to be OK with a red/black pirate costume (instead of pink) and she was a go. So Emily's costume is pretty much finished. I still have to find the peasant top which we plan to make a quick trip to goodwill. If we can't find a peasant top then I have a few ideas on how to cut/sew a white dress shirt into one instead. For the boots I took her boots from last year that are scuffed at the toe and spray painted them black. So far we haven't had to spend any money but I plan to purchase a few accessories to complete her outfit (like big hoop earrings, etc).
For Palmer at first he kept saying he wanted to be spiderman. I wasn't really sure how we were going to get around going out and just buying him the costume. Then after seeing some of Emily's costume come together he decided that he too needed to be a pirate. It's funny the things kids worry about. Emily was concerned that she couldn't be Palmer's pirate wife. Bret and I assured her that brothers and sisters could be pirates together. Palmer was concerned b/c swords are not allowed at school (even toy swords). Again we reassured him that we could leave it at home and use it just for trick or treating. I am still working on putting together the pieces for Palmer's costume but so far we are finding pieces here at home that can be altered to work.
We are still trying to decide what to do for our little man Logan. Bret suggested a monkey or parrot to go with his brother and sister's outfit. I am leaning more towards making him a little pirate too. Bret and I think we can throw together some pirate costumes for ourselves also. So I think we are going to all be pirates.
I have sewn the kids' Halloween costumes from scratch in the past and it was way too stressful and never ended up the way I wanted. The last few years have been really much less stressful/expensive by putting together costumes and only doing a little sewing here and there as needed.

Here are a few of the costumes we have had in the past:


This was Emily's first Halloween. We were the M&M Family. She was sooo tiny!



For Emily's second Halloween she was Raggedy Ann. I made the costume and it is by far my all time favorite costume. She was SOO cute!




For Emily's 3rd Halloween she was a witch..with a fairy kind of twist. She loved her tutu. It was so cold this year that we had to layer her up but she was still super cute.




The next year was Palmer's first Halloween. I still feel very guilty about the fact that I bought his first Halloween costume instead of making it but I found it at a used kid's clothes store for $5 and it was perfect for our family theme. We were the OZ family and it was awesome.


The next year was the first (and only) time that I made both kids' costumes. I realized too late that Emily's princess dress that she insisted upon was way over my head with regards to sewing talents. I also realized that she was going to have input on how it should look and that mommy's sewing abilities was not up to par with her expectations. She also insisted on the wig and it was out of control. Palmer's costume was super cute. He was a dinosaur and loved it.


This brings us to last year. Again one our favorites. Besides the fact that mommy was not chugging Red Bulls trying to finish the night before and the fact that it was our least expensive year it was so much fun. To us the most important thing is that the kids have fun. That they feel for one day out of the year that they can be anything they want to. Palmer was so into his fireman costume and Emily loved being Mary Poppins.





2 comments:

Abby said...

Can I just say that Emily is beautiful? I love your halloween pictures! You do such a good job! I wish you lived closer so we could borrow the dinosaur. Charlesey is obsessed with dinosaurs!! :)

Missing you! Abby

I am Laura said...

Wow! You are good. I still don't think I can do it, but I have some ideas with boxes and such. We will see. Thanks again for your comment on my blog. I have you bookmarked and I am excited to be your blogging friend.