Handmade Halloween 2017

 

"Why is there a fire in a pumpkin, Mama?"

"Weird."

And now you know what I've been busy crafting lately...

Ineke's lost sheep costume was based on this free pattern- but I converted it (on a wing and a prayer) to crochet because I am much faster at that.  For the whole ensemble, I used about four skein remnants left over from other projects- so they are different yarns and different thicknesses.  Some were shiny, some were muted, some were thick, some needed to be held double...but all were almost the same shade of cream so it worked.  (And I used up little bits and leftovers!)  I ran out of time to crochet the ears so I just used black felt.  (I'll probably make crochet ears later.)

Adele' was Bo-Peep, obviously.  Doesn't she just fit the part to a tee?  The dress we've had for many years.  The shepherds' staff we borrowed from friends and the hat I made using an el-cheapo straw hat from the craft store (with a 40% off coupon it was $1.50)  I cut the back sort of like so:

and then trimmed with ribbon and hole punched two holes on the sides to tie it up.  And the curls were a must have.

Andrew was Zorro- bless his heart!  A simple mask, head scarf and belt of black fabric (which I have now used up all my plain black fabric- it was a close call!) were all that were required for him outside of church clothes...and a spiffying up with spray paint of his wooden sword.  It shines with silver and gold once again.  That sword has seen many Halloweens and the sword brandishing boy looks a bit different too.

Corynn was a Genie in a bottle.  Or rather, OUT of a bottle.  The smoke was spider webs and sadly, I never got a picture when it got a bit darker- she had twinkle lights in there too that looked SO AWESOME in the dark!  We had to shorten her pirate vest a bit and I bought special green face powder for the occasion but it was pretty simple to put together too with an old black skirt.  I had only to buy a bag of spider webs at the dollar store and the face powder.

Judah wanted to be an astronaut, which took the most work.  I covered an old pair of footie pajamas in white duct tape and electrical tape and paper-mached a helmet.  We taped on some decals from NASA's google images that I had printed and made rocket torpedos in the back using soda bottles.  (Now you know how the 2017 soda ban went in October.)

Mental note #1: Make sure the footies are spacious fitting and not nearly too small when doing something like.  The duct tape makes things without as much give.  (The poor boy could barely sit down)

Mental note #2: Paper mache requires several layers and many hours of drying time.  Do not start a paper mache project the day before you need it.  ( I tried to speed up drying time by putting in the oven which made it dry too quickly that it caused huge cracks and curls in it.  Oh man- I was able to get that done by the skin of my teeth, a thick layer of duct tape and not a little bit of stress.)

Mental note #3: Not all trick or treating is conducive to jetpacks.  Country trick or treating is not the same as city trick or treating.  Our kind involved hopping in and out of the car to get to neighbors' houses, visiting a bit with each person and getting pictures taken at each one- then hopping back in the car to drive to the next house.  It takes like four hours to visit 8-10 houses.  A rocket fuel jet pack is a great idea for city trick or treaters who just keep on walking from door to door- but there are some things that country trick or treaters just can't do.  That jet pack pretty much got squished and sat on so many times, pretty soon it didn't resemble anything but garbage hanging from Judah's back.

The children all enjoyed the evening, the neighbors all enjoyed the visit and I am going to try NOT to enjoy the entire canner full of candy that is in my kitchen right now.

Says the girl with the least amount of willpower In.The.World.

(Crafting On...)