Family Halloween Costume: Knight, Damsel, and King

As promised, it's time to show you how our Halloween costumes turned out. Recall that Trevor originally wanted us to dress as a knight (himself), a pink-dressed damsel (me), and a blue and green dragon (Steve). You can see his sketches here. 

Here's Trevor's knight, by far the most successful of the costumes:

He was thrilled with how it all turned out. He loved the chainmail and the tunic and thought I did a perfect job. (I love that he thinks his Mommy can do everything. Apparently he doesn't care about crooked seams!) His sword was just like he wanted. He loved the shield with his version of what he thinks our family crest should be (Trouble with a rose in his mouth, representing the deRosier name).  The costume got a lot of compliments. I made the entire thing for less than $8.

I made a damsel hat to accompany my hand-me-down dress. The dress is a very unusual color, so I decided to paint white fabric to match it, rather than searching (possibly in vain) for existing fabric that matched. I took the dress to the hardware store and had the man at the paint department scan it so I could color-match the hat. He said it was the first time someone had scanned a gown and bought house paint that matched! I painted the fabric (using a pouncing motion to create irregularities to disguise the fact that the color match wasn't perfect), added interfacing, and sewed the hat. Then I used Glue Dots to attach tulle!

Total cost of my costume: about $7 for fabric, interfacing, and paint.

It was pretty clear a few weeks ago that I would not be making a dragon costume. We decided that Steve would wear an old Renaissance Faire costume he already owned, plus a crown made by Trevor and me. I present, King Steve:

Total cost of Steve's costume: $0. We had all the crown materials on hand.

I actually made a fourth costume. It was for the smallest member of our family and was also made with materials we had on hand. We frequently refer to Trouble as the Wonder Bunny, so I just had to make this:

If you don't have a young child in your life, you may not be familiar with the Wonder Pets. It's a great show. Three classroom pets rescue baby animals in trouble. The theme song is particularly catchy. "The phone... the phone is ringing!"

Trouble did not like his costume. I would put it on him and race to snap a picture before he tore it off. Repeat, repeat, repeat. These are the two best photos:

  

I think I'll try again sometime. I really want a cute picture of the Wonder Bunny. 

So that's the wrap-up from Halloween 2011! While I didn't quite make the costumes Trevor had originally requested, he was very happy with how everything turned out. And that's all that matters to me.

Need a Gift for a Sports Fan?

My nephew Timothy is a rabid San Francisco Giants fan.  For his birthday, he wanted to transform his bedroom into everything Giants.  I decided a DIY gift was in order.  So I made this:

This project was surprisingly easy once I figured out what I was doing.  I started with a plain black wastebasket.  I found the Giants' logo online, printed it out, then carefully cut around the edges with my Fiskars Fingertip Control Knife (love that thing!).  I used spray adhesive to attach it to the wastebasket.

It looked good, but somewhat flat.  I added a few coats of Folk Art's orange Extreme Glitter paint. 

I LOVE this paint.  It adds amazing shimmer and shine.  Because the glitter is so small, it works really well for masculine projects.  Now the Giants logo has some interest and dimension. 

Happy birthday Timothy!

Happy Halloween!

Well, it wasn't easy, but I completed Trevor's knight costume and am really happy with how it came out!  The chainmail (that took me countless hours and left my hand a gnarled hook) looks great.  The tunic (which, despite its simplicity, challenged my incredibly novice sewing skills), and the shield (the easiest part of the whole thing) came out just how Trevor wanted it. 

I don't have photos to share of Steve's king costume or my damsel costume yet.  We'll take some group photos tonight. 

Happy Halloween everyone!

I ♥ Coloring

I've always loved coloring.  Pens, crayons, colored pencils, coloring books, geometric designs, my own drawings- I love it all.  I find coloring very relaxing.

Trevor loves coloring too.  But while I spent hours and hours coloring on my own as a kid, Trevor considers it a social activity.  He doesn't want to color unless he's coloring next to someone else who is coloring.  So we frequently color together. 

I'm always on the lookout for coloring contests or holiday-themed coloring pages.  When I saw two pages on the Sparky Firepants blog, I immediately printed out copies for Trevor and me.  I love that there are two different styles of pages.  The first is a typical blackline coloring page.

Mine:

Trevor's.

Some people feel that this type of coloring page discourages a child's creativity.  I completely disagree.  Trevor obviously didn't feel limited by conventional colors when he colored.  He didn't happen to add his own details to this page, but he frequently does.  I like this type of coloring page because it helps him develop fine motor skills and allows him to try out new techniques.  See the way he colored the lettering?  He saw me doing mine that way and asked me to teach him how.  I love that he experimented with something new.

The other coloring page we did definitely encouraged our creativity!

Mine.

(The last one is supposed to be a cow.  I hope the others are more obvious.)

Trevor's.

Once again, we inspired each other. Trevor started with the bunny jack-o-lantern.  (It's colored grey, but the scanner didn't pick that up.)  I ran with that idea and made a whole page full of animals.  Trevor used my idea of a pig and a giraffe.  He added the fish, then decided he wanted the last two to just be faces.

I ♥ coloring!

Themed Patterned Paper

I have a problem with themed patterned paper.  No matter how cute it is, I rarely end up using it.  Either my pictures end up clashing with it, or it is too theme-y for the layout, or it just doesn't work for some other reason.  And it ends up sitting in my pile of unused paper.  I've pretty much stopped getting any themed patterned paper unless it has a non-themed pattern on the B-side.  That way I know I can use it for more than just the one topic.

This layout uses paper from Pink Paislee's 'Old School' line.  I wouldn't normally go for school-themed paper for a layout about a boy and his pet bunny, but the B-side worked perfectly.