Along Came A Spider . . .

Wednesday night was Trunk or Treat, our church's annual Halloween party.  We always go overboard on our costumes . . . I wind up stressing myself out trying to get it all done but every year I'm glad I did!  Our little man picked our theme: Spiderman!  The irony?  His was the only getup that required no crafting on my part.

I got to be Spidergirl!  I found the dress (normally $50) for $9 on eBay.  I'll never buy a new costume again!  I realize I look more like an ice skater than a superhero, but I still think it was cute.

Just like every other female in the world, I'm obsessed with Kate Middleton.  This year I vowed to make myself a fascinator for Halloween no matter what I dressed up as.  When else would I get an opportunity to wear something so frilly and ridiculous on my head?  So here's what I came up with:

Yes, it's more drag queen than Duchess of Cambridge but I still love it.  It was super easy, too!  I started out with this glitter spider clip from Undead Pinups (best shop name EVER) on Etsy.  I added blue glitter glue to the silver stripes.  I cut a black widow symbol out of red felt and coated it in red glitter glue, then attached it to the spider's abdomen with hot glue.  Next, I covered a headband base with blue felt and coated it in blue glitter glue.  I cut out about a 12 x 12 inch square of red sparkle tulle and folded it in half.  I gathered the cut ends, making the tulle into a half circle.  I hot glued the cut ends to the underside of the headband.  I cut a slit in the felt on the headband and slid the clip inside, and hot glued it for stability.  And, there you go! 

Next up was my hubby's costume: Doc Ock, or should I say Doc Ick.  This costume gave me such a headache!  We made the arms from vacuum hosing (at Home Depot for around $10) and wire hangers.  I made the claws from foam core and attached them with hot glue.  The Hub was insistent that the open claw had to have a light in it, just like in the movie (Spiderman 2).  He found an LED light at Radio Shack for $1.  I stuffed it in the tube, glued it and duct taped it into place.  We couldn't find a trench coat, so he just bought a shirt and I think it still worked fine.  

 The Hub made a harness out of an old backpack and a metal grill.  I ziptied the arms to the grill and there you go.  Doc Ock.  My hubby is very shy but he likes to get into Halloween.  He got a lot of attention and compliments at the party . . . I could tell he was really excited with how it came out.  

In the end, the hard work was all worth this picture of Hub and the Little Man:

My DIY Halloween

This Halloween is the first year I actually sewed something for myself. I've thrown costumes together from pieces of thrift store finds but I've never actually made something new for a Halloween costume.My son loves Batman and has been asking to be Batman for "Edd-o-ween" for months. He got a great costume from his uncle for his birthday last month so he is set.

I asked him what I should be for Halloween and he answered, "You be Wobin." That means, "Robin." I was so touched that he wanted me as his sidekick (and all of us moms know that this won't last for long!) that I was determined to be Robin at any cost. I was surprised to find that they actually make Robin costumes in women's sizes. Two problems. Problem #1: It looks like this:

For those of you out there who have this costume, more power to you. It's just a little too, er, tarty for my taste. Plus, I'm lacking in certain areas to fill out the costume as expertly as this model does. Problem #2? It costs $40 at the least, not including the leggings I would need to wear to cover my pasty legs. So, this price was totally out of my budget. I would have to make my own. Here's what I did:

I made the skirt and cape from scratch. I used this tutorial to make the skirt. It's the first skirt I've ever made and it only took about an hour to make! I bought a red v-neck shirt and the red elbow gloves at Walmart. One of the gloves fit fine but the other one was made for a woman with kielbasa fingers . . . seriously, it was huge! So I "took in" the fingers of the glove with my sewing machine and it magically worked out. For the logo on my shirt, I used craft foam and hot glued it on. That's the beauty of costumes . . . you can totally jimmyrig them with no worries! I prefer the foam to felt because it offers sharper edges and colors. Finally, the belt and boots were already in my closet. So, the final cost adds up to this:

Skirt and cape materials: $10.00
Shirt: $3.00
Gloves: $3.00
Foam: $0.99

Final: $16.99

MUCH better than $40, not to mention I had over 2 yards of fabric and lots of foam left over that can be used for other projects (I overbought!).

Another perk of making your own costume is that you can do anything you want . . . and if you're like my hubby, he has some unusual requests. Our Batman wanted the Hub to go as Killer Croc (from the cartoon). Er, a giant, spiky gray crocodile man seemed a little out of my league so we settled on The Penguin. I thought we should go for the classic 60s show look but the Hub preferred the 1992 "Batman Returns" look. Finally, we decided on an amalgamation of the two. There was just one thing the Hub had to have . . . webbed gloves. Insert groan here. But, amazingly (I was full of luck this week!), they worked out okay. I drew around my husband's fingers and cut out some knit white fabric. I don't have a serger so I was surprised my regular little machine did such a good job of sewing the gloves. His hands look more Ninja Turtle-ish to me, but I'm still happy with it. I also made his vest (it's not a whole vest . . . I only sewed the front and pinned it on his shirt), bow tie and pocket square. Because he wore a suit he already had, borrowed a top hat from my brother and carried our umbrella, his costume cost a whopping $10.00 (including the makeup). Nice!

I'm really proud and happy with how our costumes came out. Batman approved and we had a great time at our church's Trunk or Treat last night. I was surprised at not only how easy all this was but that I had fun doing it. I might just have to make our costumes every year!