Halloween

I asked my two year old what she wanted to be for Halloween. This is about how it went on the three different occasions I tried (characters varied each time):

"Do you want to be...Mickey Mouse?"
"NO WAYYYYY!" (with giant sweeping arm-motion similar to "all done" sign language)
"Do you want to be...Minnie Mouse?"
"NO WAYYYYY!" (again with the arm...)
"A monkey?"
"NO WAYYYYY!"
"A lion?"
"NO WAYYYYY!"
"Princess Sophia? A duck? A pumpkin? An m&m?"
"STOP IT MOMMY!"




SO. I decided, because I'm the decider and I decide things. Baby sister is going to wear the Ewok costume we bought two years ago. And what better to go with an Ewok than Princess Leia herself? Okay, fine, my husband and I *might* be forcing our love of Star Wars onto our children. But isn't that our job as parents?

This mini hunt is just to help you get a look at what Ducktail Diaper Co can make...my favorite is a solution to help clean up all the little messes.





I went and bought 1.5 yards of a white, sparkly knit (with a Joann 50% off coupon, this was $10). I took some measurements of the kid. And started cutting things out. Patterns? We don't need no stinking patterns!

I ended up with this simple white dress. It worked, but wasn't quite Leia-y enough for me. So I looked at some pictures online and added a collar and hood/cowl neck type piece (I don't know what to call it).

Ah. That's better! But it was still missing a key piece. The belt! Again, I like to live on the wild side and not use patterns, but I at least looked at the pictures here: http://www.craftinessisnotoptional.com/2011/10/princess-leia-costumebelt-tutorial.html

I got 0.25yd of a shiny dance costume material ($1.74. Seriously.) I cut out the pieces and used heat & bond to iron them together (after failing miserably at making the pretty seams like in the tutorial. Shiny dance costume material is challenging). I had some bits of velcro laying around, so I slapped those on. And voila!

Making this costume brought back fun memories of childhood and my mom sewing costumes for us. The one I remember most was when she made me Maid Marian and my brother Robin Hood (from the Disney version...my family might* have a slight Disney obsession). It made me excited to continue having the opportunity to make Halloween costumes for my kids. Seriously, I spent $12 on this. And some of my time, but it's totally worth it!

*note: there's no need for "might" in that sentence. It's just a fact of our lives.

I'm trying to prepare her to allow me to do sock buns for her hair, but I go in fully expecting her to not cooperate. I hereby promise to come back and add a picture of her and  baby sister on Halloween. But as of today, she's finally excited to be "pwincess layyyyylah" - so here's hoping she'll actually wear it!