halloween prequel : homemade momo and aang costumes

Tonight was our annual trip to Boo at the Zoo, a Halloween event at our local zoo.  The kids dress up and trick-or-treat around various stations set up by local businesses.  It’s a nice way to extend the fun of Halloween.  But for some reason, I let the deadlines sneak up on me a little.  In my head, I had until Halloween to get their costumes done.  In reality, I had one week less time!

I finished the majority of Will’s costume a couple of weeks ago.  I thought it was going to be a major ordeal (since I was going to make pants, a cape, and a shirt–all without a pattern).  But it wasn’t so bad.  Ellie’s costume, I thought, was going to be easy, so I’d saved it for last.  After all, the major part of it (the bunting) was done–I was just going to add ears, a tail, and some additional details to transform her into Momo.

As it turned out, Ellie’s costume was a major pain in my butt.  Nothing went right, and I almost quit halfway through and had her wear the Panda costume I poured blood, sweat, and tears into when Will was her age.  But we’ve been talking about them doing this since before she was born, so I rallied.

Last night after my photo shoot and dinner, Will and I ran out to try once again to find some red tights for his costume.  I also remembered that he still needed a hat of some sort for his blue arrow (the original plan had been to shave his head, but with our Seattle trip coming up AND how cold it can be around here, I chickened out and decided a hat would be better).  It was a race against time, but we managed to finally find red tights (in the women’s section at Target), and scored at the Halloween store–they were still open (it was 9:15) and had a bald cap.  Perfect!  We celebrated our success with a visit to Cold Stone Creamery and had a truly wonderful evening together.

This afternoon it was back to work on Ellie’s Momo costume and Aang’s staff and hat.  His staff wasn’t dry in time for the zoo, we didn’t have time to make Ellie’s wings, and I botched the trimming of Will’s hat…so I’m calling this a rough sneak peek at their costumes.  Version 2.0 for Halloween will be just a tiny bit better.

I am THRILLED with how Will’s costume came out.  He looks just like Aang!  His pants were riding a little high tonight (they are supposed to be lower so they bunch more around his knees), and I need to add some interfacing so the sash doesn’t keep folding up and disappearing, but overall it turned out so much better than I’d hoped.  Ellie’s costume?  Well…she looks like a hobo bunny.  But even though no one at the zoo knew what she was (even those who correctly identified Will as The Avatar), they still oohed and ahhed over how cute she was ‘with those ears.’  If she couldn’t be correctly identified, at least she was cute.