Happy Halloween! {Our Bo on the Go Costumes and How We Do Halloween}

Happy Halloween!

Whether you celebrate Halloween, Reformation Day, Dia de los Muertoes, Samhein, All Saints Day or Harvest...I hope your celebration was (or will be) fun and safe.

Costumes
My little guy dressed up like a dragon and I dressed up as Bo from Bo on the Go to complement him. For the uninitiated, Bo on the Go is a Canadian television show which is available in the US through Netflix (and maybe other places....we watch on Netflix). My son really likes it and as a mom I like it because it encourages kids to move while watching TV. When he's not watching TV, Bo-like scenarios fuel his imagination and he frequently tells me he needs to "crawl like a critter" or "jump like a kangaroo" to accomplish an everyday mission while playing at home. I recommend it for kids age 2-5.

Desadore "Dezzy" Dragon {$12}: While I LOVE homemade costumes, sometimes there is something to be said for efficiency. I bought my son's costume on sale at an Old Navy outlet store for $12. I'm sure I could have spent $12 (or easily more!) and several hours to make a costume but this one was darn cute and the right price and did not require any extra work from me. His belly isn't pink like Dezzy so it's not quite perfect. If I was really motivated, I could have added some pink fabric over the top of the dark green to make his belly the right color.

Bo (on the Go) {$17}: Bo's distinguishing features are her blue pig tails and her big eyes. For my hair, I made pigtails that I folded over to make them look shorter and then colored my hair blue with Beyond the Zone brand Color Bombz spray on temporary hair color that I picked up from Sally Beauty supply for about $7 a bottle (bought 2. Used 1.15). I have pretty dark brown hair and it did a great job actually looking blue (if you've ever tried to color dark brown hair, you know what I mean!). I also put some glow bracelets around my pigtails (i bought 3 packs at the dollar store to get the right combo of colors).

For my eyes, I watched a few video tutorials on you tube for how to make your eyes look bigger with make-up. I also colored my eyebrows blue with hairspray (spray on finger, apply to eye brow) and blue eye shaddow.

Then I just wore a t-shirt, yoga pants and some more glow bracelet "power bands" and I was all set. Overall, the costume was easy to put together. The most time-consuming part was doing my hair.


Trick or Treating
We try and emphasize friends and fun on Halloween more than candy. We had two other families with kids who are similar age over for a potluck dinner, trick or treating and games. We didn't do too much trick or treating - just a walk around the block, which ended up being about 12 participating houses.

We handed out little boxes of organic raisins. Most kids seemed plenty happy with this option although one kid looked confused (and then unhappy) when he learned he got raisins instead of "real" candy. Sorry kid. We're anti-GMO in our house and I'm sure these were what you were looking for:

The Candy Fairy
Every year parents wonder what to do with their kids candy. Our house follows the tradition of the Candy Fairy. The Candy Fairy is the Tooth Fairy's cousin. The Candy Fairy is the Tooth Fairy's cousin and since everyone knows that the better conditioned teeth are worth more in Tooth Fairy-landia so she helps by trading candy for presents.

On Halloween night, my son got to pick out 2 pieces of candy he wanted to keep (you get 1 piece for every year old you are) and the rest was left on the dining room table for the Candy Fairy. In the morning when he wakes up, he'll find presents from the Candy Fairy in his bucket instead.


Do you have other healthy Halloween traditions? I'd love to hear about them!

The Littlest Monk: A Halloween Costume How-To

I had these great plans for Halloween in my head. Fancy costumes for our whole family including hand-sewn retro style dress for me. Fabulous! Until it was 3 days before Halloween and I had neither time nor a Halloween costume budget. Snap! What to do?

When I was talking through my conundrum with my husband he suggested we make K a monk. And while it sounds like an odd choice, our son does have a physique to pull it off....a cute little toddler belly and so little hair on the top of his head that he almost looks bald. It also has the added geeky appeal of it doubling as a "Reformation Day" costume (Luther is one of my husband's favorite movies. Ever.).

It was cheap and easy to make. Less than $10 in material and less than an hour of time. Depending on how you accessorize this, you could be a more specific character (St. Francis of Assisi? Luther? Friar Tuck from Robin Hood?), too

You'll need:

• About 1 yard of brown polar fleece (In my stash. Purchased months ago for $3.99 on sale at Jo-Ann's)
• 1 1/4 yard of upholstery cord ($4.39 at Jo-Ann's without a coupon)
• A long sleeve shirt, a pair of pants and a hooded jacket or coat that currently fit your child (for sizing the pattern pieces)
• Brown Thread
• Sewing Machine

Cut Out Your Pieces

The monk habit is only 4 pieces: a front, a back and a 2 piece hood.  To cut your pieces:

1) Lay out your material, folded in half (the way it came off the bolt). Grab a long sleeve shirt and a pair of loose fitting long pants that currently fit your child and lay them out on top of the fabric. 

2) Cut around the outline of the clothes. Give yourself about 1/2 inch allowance along the upper edge of the sleeves. Cut the cuff-end of the sleeve to end where the shirt sleeve ends. For the bottom edge of the sleeves and along the sides, give your self a 2 inch buffer.

When you're done, it should look something like this:

3) Remove the clothing and cut a swoop for the collar line

4) Because you had your fabric laid out double, you should now have 2 identical pieces that look like this:

5) Cut out the hood pieces by laying the hood of a coat or sweater that already fits your child on top of 2 layers of fabric so the front edge lines up with an edge like so:

Cut around the outline of the hood, giving your self 1/2 - 1 inch of buffer. Cut the bottom edge of the hood at an angle, following the line of the seam on the garment you are using for a template. Like so:

You should end up with 2 identical pieces that look like this:

Let's get Sewing!

Thread your machine with matching brown thread and set your machine to do a long, straight stitch.

Next, you'll want to decide which side of the fabric you would like to have facing out as your child wears it. My fleece had a fuzzy side (usually considered the right side) and a flat, boring side (usually considered the back side). I wanted my monk to look plain, so I chose to have the boring side out and the snuggly, fuzzy side in. Decide which side you would prefer to having showing and proceed.

1) With (what you have decided will be) the right sides together, sew the body pieces as marked with the yellow lines. Now, turn the body right-sides out so the seams are inside. optional: You may choose to hem the cuff ends of the sleeves and the hem if you would like. I chose to hem just the sleeve and leave the hem raw.

2) Next, with right sides together, sew the hood pieces as marked:

Turn the hood right-side out. 

optional: The raw part of the seam will be inside the hood BUT if the hood is hanging and not on your child's head, you will see the raw seam. Decide if this bothers you. If it bothers you (it bothered me), with the raw seam turned inside the hood now (right side of the fabric facing out) sew along the same edge with a 1/4 inch seam allowance. This will contain the raw seam. Again, this is optional.

3) Attach the hood to the neckline by first inserting a pin to mark the center, back of the neck. Then lay the hood on the body, lining up the center hood seam with the pin.

Moving from the center seam out, pin the hood to the body.

With a 1/4 inch seam allowance, sew the hood to the body, removing the pins as you go.

optional: If the raw nature of this seam bothers you (it bothered me...apparently I'm neurotic), you can stitch down the inside of the raw seam with a wide zig zag stitch. Once you have stitched the seam open with the zig zag, you can trim any excess raw edges, being careful not to clip the threads.

Get Dressed.

Slip the little robe on your kiddo. Don't they look snuggly and warm?  Tie a knot in each end of the upholstery cord you chose to use for a belt and wrap it around their waist. That's it! Enjoy your cute little monk!

I'm linking up with these great parties...

* Made By You Mondays at Skip to My Lou * Mad Skills Party at Mad in Crafts * Get Your Craft On Tuesdays at Today's Creative Blog *