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October 26, 2008

halloween prep

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halloween is not my favorite holiday. i don't hate it or anything, but i never get super excited to line my front path with skull lights or make a tree of little white ghosts, either. nothing against skull lights or little white ghosts, but you know what i mean. my kids, however (and of course) love everything about halloween with fierce intensity. they've been talking about decorations, costume plans and trick-or-treat routes for at least two months. the costumes have gone through several different phases of sketching and planning, with my daughter finally deciding to be a particular life sized uglydoll. both my kids are huge uglydoll fans and love to draw them and make up stories about them. (my son was easier: he wanted to dress up as elvis costello, end of story.)

i told her i'd give the life sized uglydoll a try, but i couldn't promise excellent results. first, sewing is not really my thing. i can do it, but the way i do it is extremely unscientific/fly by the seat of my pants. it turned out much better than i'd hoped, though very much the aw, what a nice homemade costume kind of costume.

in case you're curious, here is what we did: we bought a couple of yards of gray fleece and a wee bit of yellow, black and cream colored fleece, a couple of yards of fusible interfacing (to give the costume a bit of stiffness,) yellow and cream colored embroidery floss, fabric glue and gray sewing thread. i had a coupon from joann's, so we spent a total of $22.50.

when we got home i laid her down on the interfacing and traced the general shape of babo around her. (ie, super unscientifically.) i cut out two identical pieces of interfacing and two pieces of fleece, then ironed the interfacing to the fleece (this part didn't work so well but it was passable - i was afraid to turn up the iron too much and melt the fleece or something else dumb i am often prone to do in these situations.) we planned it so the mouth would roughly line up with her eyes.  i machine sewed the wrong sides together, leaving good sized openings for her arm holes. we flipped it right side out and added eyes with fabric glue. i stitched around the eyes with yellow embroidery floss. then i cut a large slit for the mouth and i  machine stitched two long, thing pieces of black fleece on the top and bottom cuts, and we added two teeth with cream colored fleece and stitched around those with cream colored embroidery floss. i had her try it on three or four times during the process to make sure i was one the right track.

she can see through the mouth opening really well, which was a relief. i wasn't sure how that was all going to pan out. the costume comes down below her knees and she's going to wear it with a gray sweater underneath and gray tights for her legs.

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she declared it 'the best costume ever' and said she'd 'never been so proud of me in her whole entire life'. dude, i never really thought about  what hearing that would feel like - it's pretty excellent. it sort of even made me like halloween a little bit, though i still draw the line at any super crazy decorations.  (and don't let the ones in the backround of the top photo fool you - my kids put them up by themselves. :)

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Comments

Your son is my new hero for wanting to be Elvis Costello for Hallowe'en. That is way rad.

Congratulations on rockin' your supermom status!

wow, compliments from your own children. That's brilliant! x

Great job on the Uglydoll costume! It's so cool! And, I agree with commenter Melanie...Elvis Costello...way, wayyyyy rad!

Like the costume, love that your kids are planning their cotumes, too.
happy halloween :)

Hooray! It came out awesome! I have been cursing over Sally's dress all afternoon--don't even get me started about fusible interfacing fiascos. Argh.

I have no idea what an ugly doll is but that costume looks fantastic!

Something else for me to envy you for!

I hope you are proud of yrself! Way to go with that costume!

Never heard of an ugly doll, but that costume rocks. And it rocks even more that it made you Super Mama for the day - or the week. That should definitely stretch through the week. ;)

(And I'm with you on Halloween...I always drag on it. Maybe I should get some pumpkins this week? Hmn...)

This is so cool! Nice work. I'm not making anything this year. We actually have the costume my grandma made for me when I was three for Elise this year!

I want to see the Elvis Costello costume.

you get the coolest mom award.

dear me, this ugly doll is cute! and elvis costello?!?!?!

Best costume ever!

Love it. That's a great costume and a very creative idea on her part. Mind you, I happen to think that Elvis Costello is also the best costume ever.

LOL...I love that costume!!!! I bet you'll get a lot of comments on it when your wondering the streets with the rest of the town's monsters.

i am not a big halloween fan either, but this is the greatest costume i have ever seen :)

OK. that is one super duper cool costume!
go jen go

oh. my. goodness.

this is the best thing i have seen in a long time.

Oh this is so so so good. I know what it feels like to hear you kid tell you you are the best. It's wonderful and worth all the work. You are such a great mom. Most of the Mom's at our school just buy their costumes on the internet. I love homemade Halloween. Some very cool decorations are fun but I know what you mean. Memphis' room has been decked out for a month and a 1/2 now and I am ready for them to go but she just keeps making more and more all the time. What a fantastic costume....wow. Memphis' would LOVE it. xoxoxo

simple, like a ghost, and yet...brilliant!
love it!!!!

absolutely adorable. great job!!

I think it's so fun to help the kids decorate and dress up for Halloween. They're excited and it just sort of spills out over onto me. My kids are all teens, but they remember things I did with them when they were little that I never thought of much.
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Wow..! I love that Halloween costume.

jen - you really outdid yourself. it is fantastic!

This is the best costume...ever. I wouldn't mind an adult-size for me please.

This made me laugh out loud. Thanks for the giggle.

This is so funny! I love that they wanted to be something other than power rangers or the cast of high school musical. (My kids don't know them, but we saw many this Halloween.) The complement is awesome. When I buttoned my daughter's coat today, she said, "Thanks, Mom. You're the best."
Anna

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