Often times Halloween costumes get chosen months and months before Halloween around here...
And then they change a thousand times in between!
But, this year...Violet made up her mind way back in July, and while she wavered a couple of times, she held firm to her original idea, a National Park Ranger!
She decided it the day they earned their Junior Ranger badges and she stuck with it because, while there were so many other awesome ideas...there will only be one year in which the National Parks celebrates 100 years!
I love the thought she put into the costume and how important it was to her!
To go along with her park ranger costume, my husband geared his costume around hers.
Every year we try to at least split up into Halloween "pairs" if not doing a whole family costume...
And this year, he was...
her park sign of course!
Oh what fun!
(pst...do you see the deer that joined our photo shoot?!)
He designed his sign in Photo Shop, had it printed at a copy shop and then glued it onto a pice of foam board. On the back, he used gorilla tape to make two rings so that he could easily and simply slide his arm in to hold the sign.
It really worked out perfectly!
For Violet's costume...it was a "semi-handmade" kind of costume. The hat, shoes and belt and two shirts were all purchased at the thrift store, the pants are from Target and will transition perfectly into her everyday wardrobe.
Above I mentioned that I purchased two shirts at the thrift store...well, true, I am capable of making a pretty fantastic button down shirt but...the other truth is...those take time! Of which I had none! So, as I browsed the thrift store for the perfect belt and shoes (while also scoring the perfect brand new hat in their costume section as well!) I also browsed the boy's, girl's, men's and woman's section for a brown shirt. Those are not as easy to come by as you might think! Finally I found a mens shirt that was pretty perfect, for a large man anyway...so I grabbed it thinking I could make it smaller...Then I stumbled across an extra small woman's blouse! It seemed that I was in for a little cobbling together of some shirts!
I picked the front pockets off of the men's shirt and sewed them onto the blouse and added an additional button at the collar. I then picked the shoulder button tabs off of the men's shirt as well, opened the shoulder seam and tucked them inside and sewed the shoulder back up...
The result is a pretty realistic ranger shirt! We added her junior ranger badge and a printed name tag to finish off the front...
And to make it official...a National Parks Ranger badge!
This ranger badge makes me ridiculously happy! To make it I simply printed an image onto an iron on transfer (for dark fabrics as I think those work better) and transferred it onto a piece of white fabric. I zig zag stitched the heck out of the edges and then placed a piece of Thermoweb Peel'n Stick Fabric Fuse onto the back and voila! Doesn't it looks so official!
Of course, she needed a bag for her "goodies" so, I bought some fake leather at Joann to make her a satchel. Of course, initially I made a sweet messenger bag for her from "Little Things to Sew" but alas...it was too big and a little "odd" ,as Violet put it, for candy collecting. So, with what I had left I whipped up a simple little satchel that worked perfectly and is still pretty awesome!
I really can't get over how much she looks like a tiny ranger! She got so many compliments on her costume over the weekend and on Halloween...I could see her brimming with pride each time someone told her that they liked her costume.
And of course...Dad and his sign were equally complimented...in fact, one of our neighbors thought his sign was so realistic looking that he asked him where he got it!
I'd say that's a costume well done!
