The challenge I gave myself this year was to spend no money on Halloween costumes. Nada, zip, zilch. I usually do pretty good at keeping costs down, but it never fails that there is always something I have to buy, even when making my own costumes. However, I have so many supplies of all sort, shape, make and model that I knew I could do something with it all, so I was excited and up for the challenge this year. Let's see how I did...
A couple months ago, I showed Blair some of my childhood costumes, and instantly, she clung to the Minnie Mouse costume my mom made me when I was in 4th grade. I was really excited to pass that down to my own daughter. Well, then my sister sent some costumes that her kids had grown out of, and when Blair saw the Wonder Woman costume, THAT became the costume of choice. Well, one of them. If you know Blair, you know how she loves a good wardrobe change. When she grows up, I'm positive she will either be a runway model, where she gets to wear 15 outfits in one night, or a musical performer in the likes of Cher. So, with that in mind, you can guess that she decided to have more than one costume this year. She decided she would wear Wonder Woman to our church Halloween festival and to school and wear Minnie Mouse when trick or treating (because it's a warmer costume and would be better when running around outside). That plan was fine with me because they were both equally cute. However, at the last minute, a couple hours before the church party, she completely abandoned that plan and decided she would be Cinderella, wearing one of our ratty old dress-up dresses that we've had forever. I mean, this thing was so gross, we had to give it a quick wash in the bathtub (where the water quickly turned brown), and cut off all the frayed and torn edges. But, I knew I wouldn't be able to sway her otherwise, so that's what she wore. I was still hopeful that she would wear one of the other cute costumes for Halloween night, but she's already informed me she's going to be Cinderella and warm up with tights and a sweater. Yep, she already has it all planned out! Thinking back, I'm not sure why I thought she would be anything other than a princess...she was Ariel last year and Snow White the year before, so it's only fitting that she continue down the line.
Reid is much less concerned with his Halloween costume. Again, thanks to my sister, we had an Indiana Jones costume, an Obi Wan Kenobi costume, and this Luke Skywalker costume for him to choose from. The Luke costume was the largest of all 3, but that's the one he wanted to wear, so we went with it, even though he looks a little like a convict. I didn't realize until after we were at the church party and I saw a few other boys in the same costume that we forgot 2 important pieces of it, but I don't know if Reid even noticed. We'll get it right for Halloween night, though. 
When I asked Sloane what she wanted to be for Halloween, she kept going down the princess line too. Well, I knew that at her age, I might still have a little influence over what she wore, so I wouldn't give up. I saw her playing with a rainbow ornament (rainbows are one of her current fascinations), so I thought I'd throw that out there as a suggestion. To my surprise, she liked it! So in my effort to not spend any money, I rescued a long sleeve white shirt from our Goodwill-donation box and found some gray pants that were stained and that she wasn't going to wear anyway. I borrowed some paints, and started striping. I was trying to figure out how to make a sun for her head and lucked out when I came across this leftover foam crown in my craft supplies. More digging uncovered cotton batting that I was able to use for the cloud around her waist. When I asked her if she wanted to help me paint, she jumped right in. She asked my what we were painting this for and I reminded her of her rainbow costume. She said, "MAMA! I TOLD you I wanted to be a superhero!" I said, "No, you said you wanted to be a rainbow, remember?" She replied, "Oh, I was just teasing [about being a rainbow]." So I said, "Well then, you can be Rainbow Girl." We even made up a song and everything. :) In case you're wondering, her special power is making people happy by shining down her colors on them."
And what's a rainbow without a leprechaun to live at the bottom of it?!! Jer and I were debating over who got to be the leprechaun...I ended up winning because I had the most leprechaun-ish clothes. In retrospect, I'm not sure that's a contest I should want to win. But anyway, the base for the costume was just a button-up white shirt and black pants rolled up like knickers. I paired it with some old white trouser socks that are a holdover from my office days and some black loafers. Our Goodwill donation box, again, provided the green overshirt. Some white felt clovers, a green ribbon tied like a bow tie, and a black purse filled with gold fabric (for the pot of gold...no, don't feel bad, I know I'm the only one that got that connection...that's okay...I'm happy just amusing myself) finished the outfit. Next came the hat...ahh, the hat...you see, years ago, we bought a leprechaun hat because we (or more likely, I) thought it would be cute to dress up a two-year-old Reid as a leprechaun. Well, that costume never materialized, and with each subsequent two-year-old, the thought always entered my mind but never came to fruition. Meanwhile, the hat continued to occupy the kids' dress up toybox. So imagine how thrilled I was that, finally, we were going to get to use that leprechaun hat! It was, afterall, the basis for my entire costume idea. I eagerly went to retrieve it. I couldn't find it. I looked everywhere. I could not find that stinkin' hat anywhere. I was so mad that my whole costume revolved around this hat and now I didn't even have it. (In hindsight, I think I threw it away this summer, as a desperate measure to get rid of things that always seemed to be in the middle of the floor yet were never actually played with. I know, seriously, of all the years to finally decide to be a leprechaun, I have to pick the year that I actually got ambitious in decluttering my life??) So, in keeping with the spirit of my challenge, I tried to make a couple other hats work, and they would have been great had I been going as a leprechaun who pimps in his spare time. But I wasn't. So I had to say no to those. I also tried to figure out how I could make a hat, but let's face it, hat millinery is not in my skill set. So I broke down and bought one. But--but!--I justified it as a legal purchase because we had had a leprechaun hat for many years that I would have worn had I not gotten all gung ho on my cleaning spree. Stupid New Year's Resolutions. Oh, how much did this new hat set me back? Only $2. :)
Finally we get to little Elise. For years, I've wanted to make someone a peacock costume. Feaful that she will be an overly independent 2-year-old next year and refuse to wear a cute, original costume that I want to make for her, I decided I better get my peacock costume in this year, just in case she refuses next year. I drew up a template and started assembling. The inner workings are a piece of cardboard, wires, skewers, a piece of thin quilted fabric, and elastic. For the outside, I had originally planned on using turquoise for the tail feathers, but alas, I did not have a large piece of turquoise fabric. I was really stressed about what I would use since I wouldn't allow myself to go buy anything, but then I lucked out (again!) and came across a big section of green fabric (leftover from mine and Jeremy's Jolly Green Giant costumes in my college days) in my fabric box! Any combo of green, teal, blue, and purple scream peacock to me, so I went with it! More digging uncovered enough fabric scraps to be used for all the accent pieces. When it was all said and done, I used leftover aqua fabric from Sloane's first-ever Halloween costume (Miss Piggy since she was quite the fat baby), gold fabric from one of Aunt Denise's--and then subsequently my--formal dresses from earlier years, lavendar fabric from one of Aunt Melissa's formal dresses from high school, and teal paisley fabric (which I added to the purple and white tutu) from Blair's Little Mermaid costume last year. It's like a modern-day version of a quilt! Speaking of the tutu, it was a past Christmas gift made by Aunt Amy (thank you Aunt Amy) and we already had a green shirt and purple pants to be used as the base. And the aqua beads in her head feathers were once salvaged from a broken dress-up necklace. (You're probably picking up on the fact that I can't convince myself to ever throw away perfectly good craft supplies, no matter how insignificant they seem at the time. You just never know when they will be the perfect accessory to another project!) In the end, I was happy with the way it turned out and even happier that I was able to do it without spending a dime! Mission accomplished!
This one I had to include just because I like it...her coping mechanism is sucking her thumb while playing with her belly button. We have (or had) a hair-player, a blanket-sniffer, a hair-twirler, and a belly-button-player. Odd bunch.
