Halloween Costumes 101

I am going to be boastful and proud in this post. So if those are things that bother you than you should leave. Now.

I like to sew. I can sew pretty well. I'm not as good as my mom (she made my gorgeous wedding dress!!!) but I can make things look pretty darn good.

That said, I also like to make Halloween costumes. I've never made a boy's costume or an action hero, but basically I don't think costumes are hard at all. It's all in the attention to detail.

Sack Costumes:

When Googie was born we lived in Idaho. She was four weeks old on halloween, and we dressed her up as a potato. I went down to the local fabric store, found some patterned brown fabric, sewed one seem down the side, and put elastic in the top and bottom. It took one hour start to finish and cost $5. I bought Googie a brown long sleeved shirt to wear underneath it and the opening on the top went right under her armpits. You could do the same sort of thing with a pumpkin/jack-o-lantern, a tomato, a basketball/baseball/football, or a rock. Just change the color of the fabric and add the details with permanent markers. The sack costumes are perfect for infants. I think the baby will be a strawberry this year, now I just have to find some red fabric.

Dress Costumes:

This is the only other type of costume that I have made for my girls. Last year Googie was a witch. She was the cutest 1 year old witch there ever was. The best way to do these costumes is to take a little help from the store. We head out to the local thrift shops and find a pre-made dress. For the little witch costume we used a size 6x velvet/vulor, dark purple stretchy dress. It worked out perfect! It was a little loose on Googie, and way to long, but length is easily fixed. So then I went about adding details too it. I found some great spider-web fabric in purple on sale at the fabric store. Made some cute little sleeves and a cape from that. We got some orange netting to put around the bottom edge (so it looks like she has an underskirt) and created an empire wasit line with it. I had an old black boa laying around and used that as a finish for the bottom of the skirt. Then for finishing touches we added a witches hat and black and grey striped socks. This one required a little more sewing and took me 3-4 hours to finish and cost $12. Still not bad for an adorable witch.
This year Googie is going to be a princess. The princess costume is all about the details. A princess needs a crown and some extravagent jewlry. She also needs a pretty, long dress with a full skirt. This is the dress I found at Goodwill. I would have prefered it to be pink, or some other jewel color (like ruby red), but it will make a pretty princess dress. It is also a 6x size, but I will have to take the bodice in a little (really just a straight seem, super easy to do). But it is the perfect length-- hits at her ankles. All I really need to add to it is some trim. I'm thinking silver/sparkly ribbon or lace around the bottom of the skirt, the sleeves, the neckline and some along the dropped waist line. I'm betting it will end up taking me 3 hours and costing around $10-15.

The thing about making costumes is, they don't have to be perfect. It's going to be dark (or at least dusky) when they go out trick or treating. It's more about giving the illusion of being something. Googie would be a gorgeous princess just in any pretty dress with a crown and some jewelry, but it's fun for me to jazz them up a bit. They're worn once or twice so you really don't want to put too much effort or money into them. But I like my kids to stand out from the crowd of mass produced costumes. Besides, I look forward to halloween again because I get to show off my kids in the cutest costumes.