Halloween 2011

This Halloween Megan wanted to be Strawberry Shortcake. Well that's no big deal there, right? Nothing too fancy or complicated. YUS!

I found some cute green and white leggings off of ebay. I bought a plain white shirt from walmart, though there were only long sleeves since it was the fall. I cut the sleeves and added elastic on the inside to give the "puffy sleeve" look. Also on the shirt I cut out the detail and used wonder under to iron the fabric details onto the shirt.

Next I bought fabric online that was the pink polka dot she wore, and made a simple elastic skirt. As for the hat, Megan had a cute cap, I covered it with matching fabric and elastic to keep it on. That was pretty fun to do, I thought it turned out really well!

The harder part was the shoes and the red hair. I think pink wigs on little kids is just weird. So I bought a spray on red hair dye that washes off....though when we sprayed it outside it was really messy and sticky, and tangled her hair. Overall it wasn't worth it. It wasn't even very noticeable.

I looked and looked online for decently priced shoes, but all of them started at $20, and I didn't want to spend that much on shoes she wouldn't really wear again. At church on Sunday I saw a little girl her age wearing red shoes. I asked the mom if we could borrow them for her costume and she said yes. Hooray!

Lastly, for the makeup I used some of my liquid foundation to dot some freckles on her face. When she was all ready, she was SO excited to be strawberry shortcake for Halloween.

(Do you like her strawberry shortcake socks? I put those on because it was cold outside.)

The simplest costume I ever made! We had a great Halloween with LOTS of candy. Who wouldn't give candy to a strawberry shortcake?? :)

Halloween 2009 and 2010

Halloween is coming up, and I love to make my daughter's costume rather than buy it. Why? Well...I can't quite understand why because it almost always costs more to get all the fabric and such, rather than buying the cheapo-thin-fabric costumes and not worrying about the time and effort. However, I think I do it because it gives me a sense of pride that I made it, and I always try to make it more durable and a lot warmer so she won't freeze in this New England weather.

It was recently that I realized that I did not post on here any of my past costume creations yet! How could I have forgotten? Most people take out their sewing machines around the Halloween season anyway. When my daughter was almost 1 year old, she was the cutest little button, and I wanted to keep things simple and warm. I came up with her being a "sack of potatoes!" This was to pay homage to where my husband and I had received our bachelor's from: BYU-Idaho. I lined the entire inside with a warm black fuzzy fleece fabric, making her nice and cozy, and closed the bottom (no need to open it since she couldn't walk yet). Buttons at the top allowed her to get in and out of her costume. I also added a burlap bow to some elastic as a headband to make her extra cute. She was one adorable baby spud! *Tear, tear, the memories!*

Last year (2010), my daughter wasn't able to talk clearly yet, so I knew it was my last year to have free reign over her costume choice. After looking for a while and thinking what I might like to do, I saw a costume of a little rose fairy in the stores. I thought to myself "I could make that, only better!" I didn't understand why the rose was a fairy, so I took that out and just made her be a rose instead. I constructed a dress out of pink fleece to go underneath her costume so she could stay warm. On top of that I made the rose itself, with the petals reaching downward and her head being a stem. There was a cute little hat I made for her, and green petals to go over her shoes. She was simply darling!

My daughter did not like the hat at first, in fact she disliked the whole costume. But when she realized that you could get candy out of it? Well that quickly changed the way she felt about the whole experience! The only problem was that everyone thought she was an adorable looking strawberry...Oh well, I tried! She was precious none the less!

This year (2011) I was able to figure out what my daughter wanted to be after asking her many times, and showing her a billion options (it had to come from her, no influence from me!). The result? "Strawberry Shortcake!" That doesn't seem too difficult. Pictures to come when it's finished for Halloween 2011!