Happy Halloween!

This year's Halloween costumes were a lot less stress to make than in the past. My kids picked fairly easy costumes, which I started back in August (so I would have enough time to finish them, thinking they might be more difficult than what they ended up being). But then I put off all the finishing touches until last week.

This year for Halloween, my little girl wanted to be a pirate. I had a lot of fun with her accessories. 

I found a heart shaped eye patch in the costume section at Zurcher's. I added a flower/jewel embellishment to represent the missing eye. The little hat was also found at Zurcher's. It came with a very small black feather and little red ribbon. I replaced those with an ostrich feather and fatter pink ribbon to match her skirt.

The earrings and skeleton hand barrette are my favorites. I couldn't have found a better pair of earrings. I love them so much!

I combined a couple different pirate costumes to make her ensemble. I was, however, a little disappointed with the shirt I chose. I measured the length of the pattern to make sure it would be long enough for my tall girl, and it seemed like it would be the right length - even a little long. I must have forgotten about the seam allowances though, because after I had finished the top, it's just a tiny bit to short :( 

Luckily the belt hides that pretty well. 

My boy chose to be a parrot. He actually wanted to be a parrot with a pirate on his shoulder. We even found a skeleton pirate (it was all we could find), but then I couldn't quite figure out how to attach the skeleton without constantly falling down or being in his way of movement. Plus, I think he forgot about it :)

His wings were so easy to make! I made a template for the feathers, with 4 feathers in a row. I then sewed the feathers starting from the bottom and working my way to the top, curving the feathers as needed. The top row of feathers was cut on the fold and sewn with the fold over the raw edge. I attached elastics at the shoulders and wrists. 

 

I made the feet from foam and attached with a small elastic. One of the feet got ripped while he was at school, and the elastic in the other one popped out when we were taking it off. At least I was able to get a couple pictures with them on :)

And, if it wasn't hard enough to get a picture of them by themselves ...

This was the best picture I could get of them together.

Can you tell how much they don't want to be in the picture?!

Happy Halloween!