Another Halloween, come and gone..
It's no secret that I love going all out and having a really awesome costume every year. But something about momming a 16-mo-old just really slows ya down. Shocker, right?
Back in July or August, Tucker came to me claiming he had the perfect family Halloween costume idea: Phantom of the Opera, Christine Daae, and the cymbal monkey music box! I thought it sounded like great plan so I kept the idea in the back of my mind.
In September, I started gathering supplies at Hobby Lobby and browsing D.I.'s racks for anything I thought I might be able to turn into something spectacular. Some plaster wrap and spray paint, roses, a solid brown onesie, etc. But as the supplies piled up, I still couldn't bring myself to actually do anything with it.
Before I knew it, I had a week before Halloween. I always hate myself for putting things off so late, but I guess that's just how I work. One last trip to D.I. for a loose blouse and tux pants, and a bolt of black, crushed velvet from Walmart, and I had everything I needed.
I think my main reason for putting off costumes til last minute had to do more with the fact that I knew I'd finally be forced to open my sewing machine for the first time, even though it had been sitting in my closet for almost two years. I'm ok with sewing. Like I've made pajamas and bags and can thread it and everything. But once I pulled that thing out, I had a mini freak-out. My sewing machine is way fancier than anything I've used before. So it definitely required some Instruction Manual perusing.
But then I got going, and with Nikki as a late-night buddy, supplying carmel apple suckers and fancy chocolate, I made it through.
I wish I took before pictures, but I was too rushed to think about it! So I'll just show the end result and tell you what I did.
The Phantom: So Tucker's costume was pretty easy. He had the shoes and the shirt. The tux pants were $8 at D.I. and in perfect condition. The cape was just one long piece of crushed velvet. I cut a thin strip off one of the ends, and then folded the edge down cutting small snips every few inches. I then threaded the thin piece through the holes, and there you go! A quick, no-sew cape! The mask was the most time-consuming. I made Tucker hold still for over an hour while I laid slimy strips of plaster (think papier-mâché) across his Vaselined face. Once it was dried and off his face, I added some details using a natural clay from Crayola. And one that was all dry, I used a white gloss spray paint. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out, especially since it's my first mask. Next time, I'll definitely go for a smoother finish and figure out a better way to stick it to his face. I was planning on using spirit gum, but when that didn't work, we had to make do with double-sided tape.
Christine Daae: My costume required more pieces but required no sewing and was fast to put together. I already had the black corset from my Queen Regina costume from 2012, and the white blouse was only a couple bucks at D.I. The wrapped skirt was a just a big, long piece of fabric (maybe a formal table-cloth?) I found at D.I. for a buck. And the darker, smaller piece was some sort of runner with tassels on it and only cost me $2. I cut the runner into a smaller triangular piece, and wrapped both gold fabrics around my waist and tied them. A couple small roses in the corset and a large one in the hair completed the look. The most time-consuming part of my costume was curling my hair.
The Monkey Music-box: For Annie's costume, I found some black velvet pants. gold shoes, and a solid, brown onesie at D.I. Actually, the onesie had "C.U.T.I.E." stitched into the front, but Nikki got that off with a seam ripper pretty easily. The hardest part of her costume was the vest. I found a little, renaissance-y shirt in D.I.'s costume section, but it was way too big and not what I was looking for. I loved the red and gold on it though, as well as the gold lining so I decided to make it work. I cut the two middle sections of the shirt out to be the front part of the vest and removed the poofy, silky sleeves. I cut a smaller version of the back and reattached the pieces to make a vest. I soon realized, however, that the red and gold fabric really loved to fray, even after sewing through it. It made things a little difficult so I finished the edged off with a small line of hot glue, and it did the trick perfectly. The little turban (which we forgot on Halloween night) was made of the same dark gold fabric from the table runner part of my skirt. I used the tassel part for a front decoration and wound part of the vest left-overs for some color. I wasn't sure how to sew it, so I just twisted pieces and hot-glued them. It seemed to work though! Credit for the cymbals goes to Nikki. She spray-painted some small paper-plates and looped hair-ties through them for handles. Genius!
Another successful Halloween for the books. And yes, we're already thinking about ideas for next year! Have any suggestions? :)
