It’s that time again. Nic’s been nagging me for weeks now, and keeps giving me that “this isn’t actually going to happen” face. It’s the same face he gives me EVERY year.
I loathe and love making Halloween costumes. I love giving the kiddos a handmade costume just like I had. I loathe that Halloween costumes inevitably involve the worst fabrics known to man. Will’s first Halloween I made him a panda costume. Of course using fake fur. It looked like a Muppet exploded in our apartment. But he was sooo cute.
The next two years I took off from the costume making gig. The first because it was my first year as a photographer and I was totally slammed in September/October with senior portraits and had no idea how to balance it all. The second year Nic was unemployed, and since home sewn Halloween costumes in my estimate ran around $30, it was much more responsible to have Will pull one of the bought-at-Old-Navy-the-year-before-on-clearance-for-$5 costumes that were hanging in his shelf. He was still adorable both times.
2007
2008
Last year I wanted to make Will a WALL*E costume out of one of our moving boxes. Nic was totally a nay-sayer and thought this was going to go terribly. I’m pretty sure we had a fight about it. But I was right (let the internet record stand) and it turned out AWESOME. Only some people thought he was a microwave.
This year I had lofty goals for the whole family to be characters from our favorite show, Avatar: The Last Airbender. We’ve been planning this since February. We had, in fact, planned to even shave Will’s head. (I’m chickening out since we’ll be doing so many pictures in Seattle during our visit in mid-November but we’ll see.) Will as Aang, Ellie as Momo, Aang’s pet monkey, me as Katara and Nic most likely as Suuko. (I’m making up these spellings as I go.) Nic wanted to be Uncle Iro, but I say it’s ridiculous to go with a minor character when you don’t have the main cast covered. Anyway, my plan was to whip out the kid’s costumes in August and our costumes in September.
It’s October.
In my defense, working on these costumes is awful. Will’s fabric is so nasty–it’s puke yellow and a gross red. It’s $2.50 a yard JoAnn’s interlock that slips all over the place and makes me want to crawl out of my skin just touching it. But this is happening. No more looks from Nic like I’m not going to pull through. We are making the pants today. And I’ll figure out how to sew a shirt next. (Oh yeah–did I mention that I’m winging it because I couldn’t find a pattern close to what we wanted?)
For Ellie’s costume, I’m really wanting to cop-out and go with a quickie solution. But I need to find white bunting. I can’t for the life of me find a solid white bunting. So if anyone knows where I could buy/order a white fleece all-in-one suit for Miss Weeze–please let me know!!
What costumes will you be making this year?
Susanne - After seeing these pics, I’m a little weirded out that I’ve followed your blog(s) for so long….but in my defense you’re ridiculously inspiring : )
I’m in the process of making a kitty costume out of fake fur…..I don’t have to yell you how fun that is. I couldn’t find a soild white all in one either (one that was reasonably priced, anyway.)