Halloween 2015

As I've discussed in previous posts, I LOVE Halloween. I LOVE making homemade costumes for my boys and myself. This year, my sons wanted to be characters from their current favorite video game: Five Nights at Freddy. Thing 1 wanted to be "Nightmare Bonnie" (which is a tattered and scary version of the regular Bonnie) and Thing 2 wanted to be Foxy the Pirate.

These costumes were great fun to make. It took a lot of craft foam, fleece, and hot glue, and I'm really happy with how they came out.

Halloween 2014

Once again, it is fall...my favorite time of the year! And in just a few weeks, it will be my favorite holiday... Halloween!!

This past summer my son turned seven, and I can almost tear up just thinking about what amazingly sweet, kind, smart, and fun boys they are growing up to be. I just keep commenting on how much they are maturing and becoming more and more independent. And this year, almost as if to prove my point, for the first time ever they have chosen two separate Halloween costumes. (Did you hear that? That was the sound of my heart breaking just a little.) Since they were babies, they've worn coordinating twins costumes, but this year, they are really letting their growing independent personalities and interests show! I'm simultaneously proud and a bit sad.

Before I reveal their costume choices for this year, let's take a moment to review their costumes from Halloweens past:

2007: Thing 1 and Thing 2

2008: Bert & Ernie

(Kinda plain...they wouldn't wear the wigs or face paint)

2009: Rock stars! (complete with black nail polish, eye liner, and pleather pants!!)

2010: Thomas the Tank Engineers

2011: Ketchup and mustard (what for Thing 1's picture on the French's Facbook page on Oct 30!)

2012: Red dog and rainbow dog*:

2013: R2-D2 and R2-Q5 (aka "the darkside R2")

And for this year, Halloween 2014....
Thing 1 chose to be... Sky Does Minecraft

And Thing 2 chose to be... Yoshi

 *While the dogs were not *my* favorite costumes, they boys LOVED them! In fact, they loved them so much, they STILL dress up in them at home and occasionally wear them out. In fact, red dog made an appearance last fall when the boys had to dress up as a book character for a class book report (Thing 1 went as Pete the Cat and Thing 2 went as Clifford the Big Red Dog)

And this past weekend, we took the kids to the local Zoo Boo and Thing 1 opted not to wear his Sky Does Minecraft costume because it would "be too hard to sit in" when riding the train, roller coaster, etc. So he opted to wear his Rainbow dog costume instead and keep the Sky Does Minecraft costume for Halloween night.

So it just goes to show...sometimes it's not the most complicated or "original" costumes that the kids love best. Sometimes it's just the simple ones that allow them to use their imaginations!!

Hope you have a Happy Halloween!

Los Luchadores

I got my sewing machine back! Yay! A quick trip to the sewing machine doctor for a tune-up was just what it needed.

Within hours of having it home, my neighbor approaches me..."Could you make me some lunchador masks for a competition we are having at work?"

What's a luchador? You've seen Nacho Libre, right? (If you haven't, you need to! I ♥ Jack Black!)

A few hours later, she brought over bags of bright, colorful, and shiny fabrics along with some images of the kinds of masks she was looking for...and we started cutting and sewing.

And voilà...a few hours later we had El Zorro de Plato (The Silver Fox), El Destructor (The Destroyer), and Megavatio (Megawatt...her work is an energy company :)

I think they turned out great!

Fall!

School started this week, which can only mean one thing: Fall is on its way!

I love fall! It is my absolute favorite season!

I love the light jacket weather, the falling leaves, the cool nights, wearing scarfs, drinking hot chocolate, going to football games (don't even like football, I just like going to the games)...and I LOVE Halloween!

Halloween is still 75 days away, but my mind is already racing with ideas for Thing 1 and Thing 2's costumes!

(An aside: My sewing machine is currently in the shop. Quelle dommage! But, it should be ready sometimes in September, so I should (knock on wood!) still have plenty of time!)

Before I think about the coming costume, I would like to review their costumes of past:

2007: Thing 1 and Thing 2

2008: Bert & Ernie
(This is definitely my least favorite costume, but they were 1.5 and really wouldn't have worn a wig, a hat, makeup etc...so we went very simple)

2009: Rock stars!

2010: Thomas the Tank Engineers

2011: Ketchup and mustard

So what do you think they'll choose to be this year?

They love playing Angry Birds on my phone...so maybe:

We could even get our new puppy into the fun...

They love Cars 2...so maybe: 

Or

They loved watching the Olympics, so maybe...

Or on second thought, maybe I could get Superman to do this one! ;)

Whatever we choose, I feel like nothing can beat the ketchup and mustard. We got sooooo many people staring and complementing us on that one. It was so simple, yet original, and everyone loved it! (Props to Thing 1 and Thing 2, because they came up with the idea all on their own!)

Hmmm...about 60 days left to decide!

Update:

The boys decided they wanted to be dogs. Thing 2 wanted to be a "red dog" and Thing 1 wanted to be a "rainbow dog." Not my favorite costumes ever, but the boys loved them!

Almost done

Halloween is almost upon us.  Time to get together the finish pieces of the boys' costume.

We liked having the wagon with us so much last year that we decided to refashion the Thomas the tank engine into a hot dog cart.

Because I'd been using the wagon as a garden cart, and it'd been left out in the backyard all summer, and was completely waterlogged (yea, we didn't make it with very good wood), we had to rebuild the bottom and sides.

Then we spray painted it a shiny metallic silver and resprayed the wheels and handles black.

Finally we painted the sides.  And what hot dog cart is complete without an umbrella?

We are finally all ready for Halloween.  And not a moment too soon, because tomorrow there is a Trick or Treating event in town along fraternity/sorority row that we plan on hitting up!  First time with all of the costumes together!  Can't wait to take some pictures.

Updated pictures:

My Back Up Plan

My back up plan, for if/when Thing 1 and Thing 2 decide they don't want to wear their costumes for very long.

They'll also be great just-because tees, dontcha think?

Cut the mustard

As a reminder, my 4 year old twin sons wanted to be ketchup and mustard for Halloween this year.

Thing 1 is my mustard eater and Thing 2 can't get enough of his ketchup. So, in my mind that is how I would dress them. But over the past week and a half, they have each been telling me that they are dressing as the other condiment. I have no idea how this will shake out on Halloween night.

But for now, I finished the Ketchup costume last weekend.

And spent this morning finishing the Mustard costume.

I used the ketchup costume as a base for size and height. Then made the slightly more bell-bottomed shape and narrow squirter top. It fits Thing 1 great so far.

Then I hot glued the labels I'd already made, and I added his weight in ounces to the bottom. Then used yellow puffy paint to make lines on the squirter to look like ridges.

Finally, I had to bribe Thing 1 to try it on for me. But once he had it on, he really had some fun with it pretending to soak Superman with mustard.

Next step: the hotdog cart!

Ketchup catch-up

Thing 2's ketchup costume is finished!

One I finished making the labels (materials: felt, hot glue gun, and puffy paint), I just had to make the actual bottle shape.

I didn't have a pattern, so I literally laid my little ketchup kid down on the felt and did a police outline of his body.

Unfortunately, my ketchup kid (Thing 2) wasn't being very cooperative after the initial measurements, so luckily I had a clone happy to step in for the "fittings".

Finished product.

I plan on having Thing 2 wear a red shirt under the costume.  I'll have to have a long sleeve one on stand-by in case it gets cold.  No jacket is going on over this costume!

And, I've already finished the labels for Thing 1's mustard costume.

Seriously, I love Halloween!  When Steve Jobs tells the world to follow your passions, I think to myself "Self, why can't you find a job where you get paid to make Halloween costumes all year long?" :)

Halloween is coming!

Halloween is just 26 days away! Which, seems like a lot of time, but if you saw our family's calendar for this month, you'd understand why I already feel like I'm running behind making Thing 1 and Thing 2's Halloween costumes.

As I've discussed before, I come from the school of make-your-own-costumes. And as a mother of twins, I like to dress my boys in coordinating themes. So this year, we decided to do Ketchup and Mustard. Superman actually came up with the original idea, after seeing ketchup and mustard costumes at Menards. It seemed like a perfect fit for them because we are going through a phase right now where they want "sauce" on everything. And wouldn't you know it, Thing 1 only wants mustard. Lots and lots of mustard: on hotdogs, on french fries, on chicken nuggets, on Ritz crackers. You name it. Thing 2, the same thing except he wants ketchup on everything. I even saw him dipping his apples and grapes in ketchup. And he ate them!!

Of course my boys can't wear any regular old generic ketchup and mustard costume :), so I hit the internet and searched for inspiration.  Basically, I decided to model their costumes after the old fashioned Heinz ketchup bottle and French's mustard bottle.

Last night I measured the boys and then drafted a costume based on their proportions. Then, using felt, I designed the Heinz ketchup label. I used my spring loaded snippers to cut out the intricate letters out of adhesive backed black felt.  I started cutting out the red lettering too, but it came out too fat, so I settled on using red fabric paint instead.

I replaced the original "Est" date with 2007, since that is the year Thing 1 and Thing 2 were born.  And I changed the "Net Wt" to their weight in ounces.  For the label under the cap (not shown) I used 04 instead of 57, since the boys are 4 years old.

Now, I just need to figure out how I'm going to create the bottle itself. I can't decide if I should do all one piece with a face hole cut out or break it into two parts, with the neck as a hat.

Oh, and remember the Thomas the Tank engine we made from a wagon last year? We liked having the wagon so much for practical and logistical purposes that this year we are repurposing it as a hot dog stand.

Now if only we had a dog to stick in a hot dog costume.