I may have said it before, we love Halloween around here. I can't remember the last time I let a Halloween pass me by without a costume. It hasn't always been elaborate, sometimes a quickly made cat eared headband and a drawn on nose, but something. I don't necessarily like making myself look like an idiot, but on Halloween that all goes out the window, because how often do we get to be silly, especially as adults.
Since the kiddos have been around we have been getting them in on the fun too! Last year we had Mary Poppins and llama llama red pajama per their requests and Brad and I joined in the fun. The year before we all dressed as fairies from Abby Cadabby's flying fairy school, that certainly made us adults feel quite silly! This year, after many many discussions and possibilities posted up on the wall, it was finally decided that we would go with characters from Dinosaur Train. Henry is in full on train loving mode right now and Violet was excited about the possibility of make up and wearing an entire outfit of her new favorite color, turquoise!
I put the costumes together piece by piece. I knew that i wanted to use the cozy winter hood ( from "Little Things to Sew", yay a reason to finally by this book!) for their heads/hats. Violet already had a Shiny Pteranodon shirt and leggings in her wardrobe. Her wings were simply safety pinned to the inside of her arms and made from inexpensive lining. Violet's pteranodon hat proved challenging for quite some time for me. I couldn't find any turquoise felt to make the bill and back which is what I had hoped. So, instead I just used corduroy. I sewed a stuffed cone of sorts on the back, but the front was the challenge. How to get it to stand up? Finally, it dawned on me (with help from Brad and Violet) pipe cleaners! I slipped about five pipe cleaners into the bill and they tuck up to the top of the hat. The bill is hand sewed as well and can be moved up and down (and easily removed). I am in love with the eyes in this hat!
For Henry's costume I used this tutorial for the tail, but used strapping and a belt buckle instead of Velcro. The pants are from "Growing Up Sew Liberated", Basic Pocket Pants. I have been excited about making some orange cords with my leftover Rollie Pollie corduroy for quite some time now, especially after seeing these and then these! I made his shirt out of fleece and used the 4t size Flashback Skinny Tee. His hat is lined in fleece and the outside is more corduroy.
I am in love with his hat too! I foresee this hat getting a lot of use around here!
Brad's costume consisted of pretty much all felt, vest and hat, super quick and easy. And, he proved his creativity once again (with a little vision from me) and made some super awesome cardboard train props!
My costume consisted of a trip to target to find green clothes. Apparently lime green is a hot color right now. I had no trouble finding what I needed! As I was walking into the dressing room the woman who worked there said, "I guess you really like that color?!"
I laughed out loud! I should have said yes, but I told her that I was dressing up like Mrs. Pteranodon, I think she still thought I was a bit weird.
My hat was a simplified version of Violet's, glue and felt on an old baseball hat.
On Saturday we donned our costumes and caused a scene walking through our neighborhood streets to a park for a little Halloween parade, armed with Dinosaur train music from an ipod taped onto our train and everything! Oh, it was fun!
I love the way all of our costumes turned out. Even more so, I love that none of the costume parts will really go to waste afterward, because they can either be used again and again in dress up, or in everyday life too! That's the way I like to do costumes...use them again and again for a variety of reasons, no waste.
I have to say, these are some awesome costumes, and they think so too!
Happy Halloween!
