Happy Halloween!

This year's Halloween costumes were a joint effort between Kevin (and Malcolm) and myself. 

Malcolm wanted to be a Roman soldier, so he and Kevin made his breastplate armor and helmet.  Malcolm learned the joys of using the hot glue gun, and the pain of velcro not holding his costume together.  In the end, we used duct tape to hold it together and only had to repair it once while out trick-or-treating.

The only parts I "made" were the tunic, cape, belt, and arm gauntlets.  The cape and tunic were two mens' size t-shirts.  I took in the shirt on the sides so the tunic wouldn't be quite so huge.  The cape is just the back of a shirt, with a piece that had been cut off, sewn to each shoulder to create a neck hole.  The gauntlets are cut from flannel backed vinyl I found in the remnant bin of the fabric store.  I also cut strips from the vinyl for a belt, and leg straps.  He wore the leg straps to school, but we left them off when it was time to hit the streets, in favor of pants.  Poor kid was cold at school.

 After changing her mind over and over again, Dorothy finally settled on being Belle for Halloween.  I looked at tons of patterns and examples of costumes people had made, and decided to use a basic "fancy dress" pattern and just change the neckline slightly to make it look more like Belle.  I decided to just do the small pick-ups on the skirt instead of the full shearing to get the draping effect of the dress in the movie.  The pick-ups kept the skirt light enough to still be light and flow-y, which I thought was important.

 A friend loaned us a fake hair piece, and it really helped finish the look.  Dorothy's hair is just in a tight bun, then I stuck the hairpiece in front of the bun, pulled it around, and secured it with a rubber band and sparkly yellow ribbon.It held really well, and she looked so grown up with her hair done up this way.  It was fast and easy too.

Dorothy was adamant that she wanted gloves to wear with her costume, and she felt so fancy with them.  She wanted me to add sparkles to her costume, but I argued that Belle doesn't actually have a sparkly dress.  That, and I was out of time to do more to her costume.  I did have a rhinestone button, left from a different project, that was perfect to cover the center gather on her shoulder piece.

 The weather at Halloween can vary quite a lot, and we were afraid she would be cold in just the yellow Belle dress, so I suggested that I could make her the cloak that Belle wears in the snow, earlier in the movie.  The cloak turned out beautifully, and what little girl wouldn't want a red velvet cloak trimmed in white fur.  Side note, I will never sew with fur again!

It was fairly warm, but she wore the cloak for trick-or-treating.  I figure she can wear it again at our town's Dickens in Dundee Christmas festival, and if we walk in holiday parade.