Costume confession!

I have a confession! I don't think I can handle making our own costumes this year.

It is either this blog or the fact that people now expect me to always come up with something handmade. But I can't do it this year. Yes, I said it! I can't do it.

Our son informed me way too late that he wanted to be a Lego minifigure. There are a couple of really great costume ideas for minifigures on pinterest and google but the amount of time and materials that go into it are a little bit too much!
So he is happily changing his costume to another Star Wars figure. I do have to admit that I hate spending any money on the expensive (but cheaply made) costumes. They are terrible! But he is happy!

And our daughter is a princess AGAIN. Merida from Brave.

We go to the Renaissance Fair every year as well and love dressing up for that fun day too.

Here are some pictures of what we dressed up as for the previous years. I had so much fun looking at all the old photos and memories. Some of the pictures were dragged from Shutterfly since I couldn't find the originals on my CD backups. I hope you don't mind the bad quality.

And YES, I did recycle several costumes. 

Our son was always so cheerful and our daughter with her sensory issues wasn't easy to dress up at all.

The JESTER:

The Pirate (Old Navy) and the Bunny:

Poor Lilly looks crossed eyed on this photo!

The CHICKEN, loved it! (Old Navy)

Lilly didn't keep it on long enough to take a good picture!

Frankenstein

The Cutest Fairy Ever

I made her headpiece, wand and wings that she didn't want to wear.

 

Our Brave Renaissance Knight

I let him make the shield himself.

The Twilight VAMPIRE

(I just couldn't help myself):

The Sesame Street Family

(our son didn't want to participate for that theme)

I made the hubby's Count costume. The head took me foooorrrreverrrrr!

And I came up with my own version of Elmo.

Elmo, Count and Abby Cadabby

The Pink Princess (Chasing Fireflies)

 Nightmare before Christmas

Pirate and a Princess

I made my dress.

So what are you doing this year? Making your own or buying?

I have no clue what to do for the annual neighborhood Halloween party!

Oh, and do you like the new look of the blog or didn't you even notice? I felt like changing it and I love it!

Arachnophobia!

Happy Monday everyone! I hope you had a great weekend! I spend mine celebrating our dear little daughter's sixth birthday!

I continued with my Halloween decorations last week! After starting with my little Ikea Hack (yay it was featured on Ikea Hackers) last week which you can see here, the kids wanted more. I usually don't start so early but they wanted the large spiders on our house again, which I do every year. I put large spiders all over the outside of our house and tie a spider web to the garage door.

This year I went a little further after seeing this idea from deliacreates on pinterest. I ended up gluing magnets to various sizes of plastic spiders and let the kids stick them to all of our metal doors and the fridge. They had the best time doing it. The spiders and large web (I had to replace our old one this year) were all from Target. And I didn't have to use plastic rings like the ones Delia used. I used hot glue to add the magnet tape which I bought at the craft store.

I already had several little neighborhood visitors who wanted to see the spiders. I mentioned before in previous posts that I don't like morbid decorations and the spiders are scary but not too scary for the little ones.

Yes, this is the front of our house and every one of the homes in our neighborhood looks the same. Really makes me think of

"Little boxes on the hillside,

Little boxes made of ticky tacky,

Little boxes on the hillside,

Little boxes all the same.

There's a green one and a pink one

And a blue one and a yellow one,

And they're all made out of ticky tacky

And they all look just the same...."

You know what I'm sayin? Malvina Reynolds' song from Weeds. Except we only have green boxes! But at least I'm making it different in the inside!

I have to start working on the kids Halloween costumes. I'm always unsure if I can actually create what they want me to make. Lets see.

Talk to you soon und guten Tag.

Haunted Ikea Stråla Woods

I'm not at all into "crafty-cutesy" Fall/Halloween decorations. I try to keep it to a minimum. But on the other hand I have kids who love Halloween. I have to find a happy medium.

My favorite thing to use for Halloween decorations are spiders. It's not too morbid and still scary enough!

With Halloween approaching I had the idea to repurpose an old white Ikea Stråla Christmas light that I had in the attic. It had turned yellow and didn't look so pretty anymore.

So I came up with the idea to turn it into haunted woods. I first wanted to cut a ton of eyes into the trees and back them with yellow transparent paper to make the eyes glow but it was so hard to cut out tiny eyes in this really thick paper that I quickly realized ghosts would be a much better option.

I drew the shapes of the ghosts on the pine trees and cut them out with scissors and an X-ACTO knife. I also have a house peeking from behind a pine tree. Then I taped the ghosts and anything else that I wanted to keep white and spray painted it black.

Voila... now we have a black haunted pine tree forrest.

I will keep it on top of my fridge during Halloween season because it stands out against my white cabinets.

The kids thought it was the BEST. That's all that matters.

Talk to you soon fellow webbers und guten Tag.

Making the World Cuter Monday