Happy {DIY} Halloween!

One of my favorite holidays is Halloween! If you know me or have been following my blog then you have probably figured out that I love making costumes and decorating for this holiday. Last year we were a skeleton family ("Skelegin") and the year before that bear was a garden fairy. But this year is my favorite so far!

Halloween seems to help the ADD I have when it comes to crafting, It gives me a deadline and focus, and each year I get a little better at crafting and sewing. Sewing is something I've been working on over the past two years and each time I set up my sewing machine I become more confident in my skills, which in turn makes me feel more excited about my next project.

But the best part of this project was taking a step towards being less perfect. The more I let myself make mistakes with this project the more I learned about sewing. Something I need to remind myself in all aspects of life -- It's ok to fail, there's a lesson in the madness...

And who'd of thought there'd be a life lesson in sewing? Perhaps I need to change my name to "Insightful Mom..."

Any how...

Here are my girls in their finished outfits. I made everything, excluding the onesie and leotard.

Can you guess who they are?

Angelina Ballerina

And Angelina's little sister

I had to distract her to get her to wear the ears.

So there you have it! 

I think it's pretty obvious that bear is super excited about her costume - the best reward for a momma!

I'll be posting my DIY blog shortly.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Skele-gin Halloween!

Happy Halloween! Yes, it's over but I wanted to share some of our photos.

I decided again to make bear's costume this year. The hard part was trying to figure out what bear really wanted to be since she kept changing her mind almost at an hourly rate. First she wanted to be a ghost, so I came up with a great idea on how to make a fun ghost costume. Then she decided to be a skeleton *Skele-gin!* which then quickly transformed into a skeleton princess.

So I started doing research on this costume. But before I could even head out to the craft store bear changed her mind again and became fully set on being Cinderella. This costume idea stuck with bear through the majority of October. I was a little bummed... This meant that I would not be making bear's costume as my sewing skills are not really on par with the fabulousness of the Disney princess dresses. She probably would have ended up looking more like Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas if I had made any sort of attempt at this one.

Even though I was a little disappointed, I didn't tell bear. I wanted to make sure that she got to be what she wanted to be and headed off to the Disney store to buy her a new princess dress and a ridiculous pair faux glass slippers. I could still make my costume ~ so no big deal really.

Fortunately (in the long run...), bear had a big tantrum in the middle of the Disney store which prompted me to leave since she wouldn't calm down. We left without a costume; me flustered by the audience I was obtaining as we rushed out and bear bursting with tears and anger, simultaneously trying to fight her way out of the stroller...

But it would end up working out for the best, even though it didn't feel that way at the time...

The very next day daddy asked bear again what she wanted to be. Bear said "skele-gin!" Yay!

She then asked: "What are you gonna be, daddy?" Daddy said, "I don't know, what should I be?"
"A skele-gin!" Said bear.

Overhearing this conversation, it was officially decided. We would all be skeletons! Daddy has been very anti-dressing up for halloween but he couldn't say no to bear. And I was certainly going to exploit this moment as much as I could!

Knowing my tummy was going to be quite large by Halloween, I had been planning a bump included costume for myself. Some of my ideas were Mike from monsters ink (wear a green shirt and paint a large eye ball on my tummy) and a bump drawn pumpkin.

But while searching for templates and pictures of bones for bear's costume I came across this blog: make it and love it  Which is where I got the idea for my part of our skeleton family costumes. Make it and love it provides a helpful tutorial. All I needed was black shirts, black pants for bear, freezer paper, exacto knife, iron, and fabric paint.

I drew all of our bones onto the freezer paper, used an exacto knife to make stencils with the drawings, ironed the stencils on to our shirts, painted, peeled, and added a bow for little miss number two, on my tummy. Easy! A little time consuming, but easy! It made for the perfect family themed costumes and we now have some great pictures to cherish as this Halloween was bear's first time trick-or-treating!

Little miss number two gets dressed up too!

Bear, The Skeleton Princess

The Skeleton Family

It's hard to tell but my husband has a beer, hamburger, and martini in his stomach. It was very fitting for the day since he spent the weekend in Vegas. It was an early 30th birthday event as little miss number two will be arriving right around the actual day. 

So that was our Halloween. Our first trick-or-treating filled Halloween was a success! Bear got lots of candy, saw lots of skele-gins, and loved her costume!

Now it's time to get ready for Thanksgiving since we'll be celebrating the holiday two weeks early.

Happy Candy Eating!

bear's mom