October 31, 2013
A Snowy Halloween for 2017
It's no secret that I LOVE Halloween. While I don't really have much opportunity to dress up these days, I love to live vicariously through my kids, and designing their costumes each year is my favorite thing to do. No seriously... I have a running list of possible costume ideas all year long that I slowly whittle down up until the weeks before the main event. This is serious business. Also, you can check out previous year's costumes by clicking here.
As they girls get older, they're starting to have a bit more of an 
Anyway, this year, Juniper (the three-year-old) really wanted to be a princess. No surprise there. Despite my slight feminist aversion to the princess culture forced onto young girls, what can I say... she's a three-year-old girl. And the feminist in me also says she can be whatever the hell she wants, even if that's a princess. (Really, I can be quite difficult sometimes. There's just no pleasing me.)
We settled on Snow White for two reasons. 1) We already had a beautiful costume dress that fit the bill, making things much easier. 2) June's hair, while naturally lighter, is the perfect cut for Snow white, so no wig necessary. Luckily, Vera (the six-year-old) was a little easier to reason with. As soon as I showed her a picture of the queen, she was on board. I suspect this somewhat unexpected cooperation may have had something to do with the fact that she got to wear some fairly bold makeup, but let's not look a gift horse in the mouth, shall we?
Putting together their costumes this year was a fun combo of thrift finds and simple crafts. I already mentioned that we owned June's Snow White dress— a very cheap find at Home Goods years ago, but here's a similar looking one that's a bit more fancy. Vera's dress came from Goodwill. It is actually a purple velvet women's dress that I shortened for her so that it landed just at her feet. The color was simply perfect! Vera's belt is really a necklace that worked perfectly for the look, and I made her brooch out of gold craft foam and stick on jewels.
Both of their capes came from Wal-Mart. I shop there exactly twice per year. Once in April to buy mulch for the yard, and once in October for costumes. If you're ever looking for plain, solid colored kids clothes with no decoration... that is the place to go. Both their under shirts came from there, and were a definite necessity this year, since the temp was in the 30's and it was snowing. Uhg. But appropriate for their costumes, no? Anyway, capes... I found them in the adult costume aisle and shortened them both to fit the girls. Vera's was actually a vampire cape, but I sewed white foam into the inside to help it stand up and to better fit the Queen's look. Here's one similar to June's. I also grabbed supplies to make June's headband while I was there. $1 each for the band and the bow. A touch of fabric glue later, and presto... one perfect Snow White bow (similar look here). We combined it with some black spray on hair color, and Snow White was born.
The trickiest part of this year's costumes was Vera's head dress and crown. I considered a few options, but ultimately ended up buying one of those spandex morph suit masks and cutting the face out into the right shape. She also wore a large black headband underneath, both to keep her hair from sticking out at all, and to help hold the mask in place. For her crown, I grabbed two pieces of gold foam with adhesive backing from Michael's and a long piece of elastic (which I found in the same section of Wal-Mart where I grabbed June's bow supplies). I sandwiched the elastic between the foam, leaving the ends of the elastic hanging out the sides, and then cut the foam into the shape I wanted. I then tied the elastic together to make a crown that would stay in place, and sewed the edges just to make sure it wouldn't come apart. The final touch was adding some stick on jewels to the crown. Here's a somewhat blurry shot that shows a better idea of how the elastic was stuck between two pieces of foam, with the ends coming out to tie together behind her head. You can also kind of see the little stitch just on the edge to hold the elastic in place.
Another thing to note from this photo is the snow... and my terrible sewing skills. See exhibit A: the cape. I do not claim to be a seamstress. But as long as nothing falls off before the night is over, I consider it a win. Progress over perfection, people.
Yes, that is, in fact, a fake apple my offspring is trying to eat. :/
So there you have it: Halloween 2017 in the books. Despite the snow and the cold, we had a really fun night! I hope you did too. I'll leave you with my favorite photo from the evening, because their 'in character' faces are just too much.
Happy Halloween, friends!
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