Bert Costume

Since I went as Mary Poppins, of course I needed a Bert!  My husband was happy to oblige.

Most of his costume was pretty low-key.  The white pants are a pair of scrubs from Walmart.  I made him a quick felt bow tie.  He wore his own white dress shirt.  And, we bought him a skimmer hat for about a buck at a costume store.  I took the patriotic paper ribbon off of it and put on a red ribbon to match the jacket.

He needed some white shoes to go with it, but didn't have any, so I made a pair of very quick and dirty spats to go over his shoes. They're not hemmed or finished, there's no button closure, they're just a quick tracing of the shoe, with some elastic across the bottom of the shoe to hold them on.

The jacket was the trickiest part of his costume.  I bought a $6 sport coat at Goodwill, in the lightest color I could find, that was close to his size.  I tried bleaching it.  It is (I'm pretty sure) wool, and I read online that Clorox bleach would dissolve it, but that hydrogen peroxide would work.  I soaked it in H2O2 for 24 hours, and it might have gotten a tiny bit lighter, but didn't turn white.  The H2O2 did, however, dissolve the thread that held most of the buttons on.

I looked into dyeing it, but there's no such thing (that I could find, anyway) as white dye, just color remover.  And it contained sodium hypochlorite, or the same ingredient as Clorox bleach, so I figured it wouldn't work.  I tried painting it with fabric paint, but it was too light and didn't cover the gray.

Finally, I gave up and just painted it with craft paint.  Well, most of it, anyway.  I sewed on the ribbon stripes first, in case the paint made it too hard to sew through the fabric.  Then, I painted between the ribbons with a foam brush and craft paint.  I ran out of craft paint on the sleeves and rather than buying more, I just used up a can of white spray paint I had on hand for the back and the sleeves.

I jokingly call it his "cement suit" as it's a little stiff.  :)  But, it loosened up as he wore it, and wasn't so bad.  :)

And here's Bert and Mary Poppins together:

Happy Halloween, everybody!

Mary Poppins Dress

I've always wanted to be Mary Poppins (in her Jolly Holiday dress) for Halloween. This year, I made it happen.

I wish we'd (my hubby and I) noticed during our photo shoot that my hair had been blown into the tulle around the hat and got stuck, but we didn't, and I'm too lazy to do the shoot again.  So, this is what you get.  :)

I used Simplicity 2813, the Cinderella pattern I used last year, for the bodice and skirt.  I shortened the skirt considerably (Mary Poppins' dress is tea length, but I liked the just below knee length better on me.) and added an overskirt made of tulle.  If I had the time and money, I would have used organza or something for the sleeves, overskirt, and neckline, but as this is a costume I will only wear a few times, I went cheap and used tulle.  It's  "inspired-by" if you will.  :) I gave the hemline a tuck to add a bit of visual interest in the all white skirt.  I added to the fullness of the skirt by wearing a petticoat with it, which I'd previously made to go with my White Christmas dress.   I drafted the tulle neckline myself, and the sleeves were from a blouse pattern I had laying around.  

I also drafted the waist cincher (complete with boning) myself.  The jabot is just a bunch of ruffled tulle tacked on to the bodice.  I threaded ribbon through lace and trimmed the neckline and sleeves with it.  I tied the neckline in the back with ribbon, as I had already added the zipper in the back of the dress, and needed a way to close the tulle.  :)

And, I tacked on several bows on the overskirt.  The hat and parasol were from a local costume shop, though I spray painted the hat white (it was natural tan when I bought it) and added the tulle to it.

My husband went as Bert (which I will blog about in an upcoming post) and we were the hit of our church Trunk or Treat--we won Best Couple Costume.  :)

Easy Harry Potter Costume

My son is obsessed with Harry Potter right now, and insisted that he be Harry Potter for Halloween. I obliged and made a very quick robe for his HP costume.

I made it the same way as I made the Dumbledore robe, but without the trim.  I planned to put a Hogwarts crest on (by finding an image online and using iron-on printer paper), but I realized that I forgot to do so before taking the pictures.  You can imagine that it's there in the picture, right?  :)

The tie is a cheap (ugly knit) tie I found at Goodwill.  I added stripes with some puff paint.  Easy peasy.  The rest of the outfit is just his Sunday clothes that he already owned.  And, of course, we drew a little lightning-bolt scar on his forehead with some eyeliner.  And, he doesn't need glasses, since he already wears glasses!  This is possibly the easiest costume I've ever put together for my kids.  Yay for easy!

Halloween Card

This is the card I made for my September card group.  I was feeling like making something simple.  I'd seen a couple items of pin-punch art on pinterest, and thought this would be a simple way of making a quick Halloween card.  

I just printed out "Boo" in a font I liked, laid my card and the template I made on top of some left over cork board I had laying around and punched an outline around the letters with a push-pin.  

My inspiration was a ghost--all white and says "boo!" right?  :)  

Dumbledore Costume

This may be my favorite costume I've made my kids, ever. Well, maybe second best--last year's Captain Smith, of Titanic fame, is up there, too.

My kids are going through a definite Harry Potter phase.  J wanted to be Dumbledore for Halloween this year, which I think is awesome.  I mean, every kid wants to be Harry, but how many do you know who have dressed up as Dumbledore, the awesomest wizard ever?

Using this photo as inspiration, I created a Dumbledore costume.

For the robe, I bought some cheap gray broadcloth at Walmart and traced a robe shape around J's body as he laid on top of the fabric.  I cut it out and sewed the back to the front, adding trim along the front and sleeves.  Though you can't see it, the front has a frog-type button clasp to hold it closed.

I'm pretty proud of the beard and hair.  Last year I made a beard out of felt for the Capt. Smith costume, but I wanted this one to be more flowey.  I thought of batting, but it wasn't quite what I wanted.  Instead, I used one of those fake spiderwebs they sell with the Halloween decorations!  Rather than stretching it out into a spider web, as it's meant for, I cut it into lengths and stretched it just wide enough to be hair-like.  I sewed the beard and mustache to a felt base, which ties around his head (and over his ears) with ribbon.  The hair is sewn onto the hat.

For the hat, I just sewed a length of fabric to a circle roughly the size of the top of J's head.  I trimmed it, of course, and even made a little tassel for the top out of a few inches of fringe that I bought in the trim section at Walmart.

Total cost?  About $10.  Cuteness factor?  Priceless.

A Wedding Fit For a Princess

I saw this display at JoAnn yesterday. Butterick has knocked off Cate Middleton's wedding dress (and Pippa's maid of honor dress, and the flower girl dress). Awesome.   :)