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!

Baseball Room

I was looking through some old posts, when I realized that I had post bits and pieces of the boys' baseball bedroom redo last summer (quilt-red, quilt-blue, pillows, coat rack, curtain rods) , but I never posted pictures of the finished product. So I thought it was high time I posted some.

As a reminder, this is what my boys' room looked like before. This is the same fishy/nautical theme they've had since they were newborns.

And this is the updated baseball themed room that we did for their 5th birthday! They LOVE it!

I got the blue black out curtains (it stays light really late in Indiana) on clearance from Walmart.com. I got the posters from Posters.com (and had a 25% your whole order coupon) and the poster frames from Menards. My parents ordered the little red locker-style night stand from Amazon.com. You can't see the alarm clock too well, but it has rainbow colored numbers! I got that from Target. The little lamp is also from Target, but that has since been replaced with a Lillian Vernon baseball lamp from my husband's parents.

We already had the shelves (Menards), but we decorated them some of my husband's old gloves, cleats, and trophies and some of the boys' balls and trophies. What you can't see behind the door is a we hung another old baseball bat and glove, along with and a framed sheet of IU baseball cards (Go Hoosiers!). The wall on the left side of the closet (which you can't see either) is basically a mirror image of the wall on the right, with a shelf on top and filled with double white metal hooks (from Menards) hanging ball caps. (My kids have a lot of ball caps!). I believe we got the baseball piggy bank from Target (or maybe Walmart, I don't remember).

Trading Spaces Myself

Once I decided it was time to re-do my boys bedroom, changing it from the fish/underwater theme we'd had going on since their nursery, to a more little boy-ish baseball room, I've been pinning ideas like crazy onto my Boys Room Re-do Ideas board on Pinterest.

One of the things I really wanted to do was this:

http://sassyscarlett.blogspot.com/2011/01/baseball-curtain-rod.html

But #1 Superman was not excited about drilling a hole in a ball ("it will unravel...blah...blah...blah...excuse...blah...blah...blah") and #2 the longest dowel I could find at Lowe's was 48" and Thing 1 and Thing 2's windows are 45.5 (add the bracket and what you insert into the ball, and trust me it wasn't long enough.

I started looking into other curtain rods, but I wasn't impressed with the quality (read: sturdiness) or the price of the ones out there.  This one from Sears.com was 19.99 a piece plus shipping, and look how thin the actual rod is!  My boys would break it with one tug of the curtains.

Then inspiration hit.  I went on to Lowes.com and found these plain white curtain rods for $11.66 a piece.  Solid wood with 1 1/8 inch barrels.  And pick up from the store was free.  And the rods were ready for pick up 20 minutes later.

I brought them home and put them up.  They fit perfectly!

Then I pulled them back down and using a red sharpie marker, I free-handed stitching around each round finial.  

And voila!!  They look fab, if I may say so myself! :)

Next step: decide on curtains.  (These are just placeholders until I find what I really want.)

Homerun!

And the crowd goes wild!

This week, I finished Thing 2's baseball quilt to match his brother's for the impending baseball themed bedroom.

7th inning stretch

I did it!!

It's been almost two months since I first pieced together Thing 1's baseball tshirt quilt, but I finally finished it.

I decided to take a summer class this year, and seeing how I haven't taken a class since my May 2005 graduation, I have felt a little overwhelmed and haven't had much free time to work on my sewing.

But this week I got ahead on my work for my class, and decided to reward myself by busting out the sewing machine.

And the result is one super-sized twin quilt (it is long enough on the sides that I won't be needing bedskirts) in a baseball theme.

I hope it's not another two months before I have the time to finish Thing 2's quilt.

Batter Up: 2nd Innning

Thing 2's baseball quilt is now all pieced together.

Next step: quilting both quilts.

Warning: this is going to take a while. :)

Batter Up: Update

After seeing the first draft (pre-quilted) version of Thing 1's quilt, Superman insisted I make one addition.

And when I say he insisted, I mean he insisted.

At first, I just thought he was kidding.  But then he made it very clear that he was 100% dead serious.

So I made the addition.

Batter Up!

Most of my craft projects lately seem to be projects I'm doing for somebody else.  Either because they are paying me to do it (Yay!) or because I'm making it as a gift.

So I'm happy to take a break and work on a project for me (well, really for my kids, but still...).

My twin sons will be turning 5 in June.  And their room is still decorated using the theme we chose for their nursery.

We have finally decided the time has come to update their room to a little more mature theme.  We (with their help) chose: baseball.

A few months ago, I started looking for baseball linens for their bed, but I was disappointed that I could only find either a specific team or general sports together (baseball, basketball and football).  But I wanted something that was just general baseball.

It was also around this time that I started making t-shirt quilts.  So Superman, being the brainiac he is, suggested I make them t-shirt quilts using all baseball shirts.

Ding-ding-ding!

I started by raiding his closet.  Then surveying shirts that Thing 1 and Thing 2 had almost outgrown (unfortunately I'd already given away all of their smaller size shirts).  Then, I hit up our local Goodwills.  Multiple times.

And finally, I had enough t-shirts to make two twin size quilts.  So this past week, after I finished Laya's quilt, I started cutting and laying out both quilts.

So far I have only sewn together the top for Thing 1's quilt:

Next I will work on Thing 2s.

And then, my favorite (for creativity) and least favorite (time-consuming) step: quilting.

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.