10.26.2011

Featuring: Pumpkin Bubble Wreath and a Costume Delimma

April R. recently e-mailed me a picture of the burlap bubble wreath that she just finished.  I think her idea to make it as a pumpkin is so very creative and fun and wanted to pass it on to you.  Thanks for sharing your wreath with us April, it's so cute!


This week has been a busy one.   I'm working like crazy to try to get all my painting projects done before it's too cold to open the windows for ventilation.   I mentioned a while back about the table that was really giving me problems, it's finally done but I haven't been able to write a post about it yet. 

This week I've been working on adding some board and batten in two rooms in my house (with my husbands help), which seemed simple enough until we decided to replace all of the baseboards in our kitchen/dining room, living room, and hall as well (to match the height of the board and batten baseboard).  Because I painted the board and batten a different color than my trim (it's the same color as my kitchen cabinets that I painted last year), if I want everything to match, I'll need to paint all of the window trim and doors as well---all of this the week before Halloween!  Am I crazy?!  I think I might be, lol! 

Two out of four of my kids have their costumes ready to go for Monday.  I'm confident I can buy one of the costumes, but my daughter wants to be this little character for Halloween:

It's Sack Boy from a video game called 'Little Big Planet' one of my kids very favorite games.
Um...can we say complicated?  I'm really not sure how this is going to happen, lol!  How would I make it?   Dye sweaters from Goodwill maybe?  And how would you make that head?   With my house torn apart,  I'm not really in a great position to start on a sewing project, so I asked her what her second choice would be:



A princess Leia costume would be so much easier to whip up for sure (I might even be able to find one to buy), but it's not what she really wants to be.

Are you sewing costumes this Halloween for yourself or for your kids?   Do your kids get to pick whatever they want to dress up as, or do you 'guide' them in their choices? 

Today's Fabulous Find...Pumpkin Bubble Wreath


6 comments:

  1. I've let my 4-year-old son pick his costume the last three years (snowman, Iron Man, and Yoda). I ended up buying an Iron Man costume at Wal-Mart last year because my homemade version was awful. The Yoda costume this year turned out much better!

    ReplyDelete
  2. My kids are teens. I made their costumes from the time they were 1 to 12. Some were easy, some difficult. My memories of this are, well tired...cuz that's what I was, tired and exhausted by the time Halloween came around.

    But because I made them, we saved them in a huge dresser drawer and over the years my kids would put bits and pieces of them on for different occasions, like special dress days at school. Toward the end of their trick or treating years, they would go into that drawer (turned into a dresser) and make costumes out of the pieces.

    Sometimes I regret all the time I spent on this type of thing because come the occasion, I was beat and couldn't enjoy myself. HOWEVER...today, riding in the car...they brought up the subject and you should have heard them talking about all the different years and the costumes and the crazy things they did with them. They have such AMAZING memories of this stuff!! So why do I share this?? because it matters....promise.

    The little brown guy? Two sweaters, dyed brown, sewn together one upside down for the legs and the other right side up. Use brown yarn to weave her into it in the middle up her front side. (or back for that matter) Make the zipper out of tin foil. Maybe due a sock hat brown too. Let her face show. It doesn't matter if the costume isn't letter to the law. She will remember that it was authentic...

    ReplyDelete
  3. i wish my kids were still treaters--i miss it:) love aprils great wreath, janet!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I've made most of my son's Halloween costumes - he usually picks something unusual that isn't available in the stores, or is super expensive, plus I hate how store-bought costumes are made out of such cheap product!

    My mom made him a Bob the Builder costume for his first Halloween - his head was shaped just like Bob's at the time, LOL. I've made him an Elmo costume, a pumpkin (he insisted I make it, not buy one), an alien (that one didn't turn out too good, everyone thought he was gumby), a dalmation, and a spider last year (imagine how hard it was to come up with a spider costume for an almost 5 foot tall 9 year old! I had to wing it, but it turned out great). This year he's Indiana Jones, and with considerable grumbling I shelled out over $30 for a costume that is so thin we'll be lucky if it lasts thru the night.

    My only complaint about making the costumes is that, because he takes so long to decide what he wants to be, I have to race the clock to get it done in time. The dalamation costume was so last minute that I was gluing on the spots until 6pm, and we were supposed to meet our friends for trick-or-treating at 6:15!

    As for the Sock Boy costume, I agree with Lesley about visiting thrift stores to see if you can find sweaters to make it from. A sweater in her size for the arms and body, and a couple of men's larger sweaters to use for the legs, and for the head. Dye them all brown. It'd be tricky, but definately do-able. Lesley's idea of the fake zipper out of foil is great; you could attach one side of velcro to the underside and it should stick to the sweater front.

    What I did for my son's oversize alien head might work for this head - we found a beanie hat that fit his head really snugly, then I made the alien head, stuffed it with plastic grocery bags (because they're so light weight), and sewed it to the beanie. I added a chin strap with velcro, to help hold it on. This way he didn't have his face covered, but still had the alien's face and head as part of the costume.......

    ReplyDelete
  5. April's wreath is so cute! Good luck with the costume dilemma. I wish we lived closer, then you could borrow one of my costumes or I could help you make one!! Good luck:)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks to all of you for your suggestions, they've been a great help!

    I've been thinking about the head and thought of sacks, but didn't think to use a beanie cap, that's a great idea Mary! I'm planning to hit the thrift stores tomorrow to see what I can come up with. I'm crossing my fingers there will be something I can use. I even thought that I might could cut up a brown blanket or use brown sweat pants and shirt to simplify things.

    Thanks again to all of you for taking the time to help me, I really appreciate it!

    ReplyDelete

I love to hear from you! Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment!

(Comments are monitored, all spam links will be deleted.)