Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf {costumes}

The last couple of years we’ve had a party with our friends where the adults dress up as well as the kids, making it pretty entertaining. 

Last year it was at our house, but this year all the families pitched in to rent the clubhouse in our area.  It ended up being super duper cheap, and it didn’t stress anyone out to have it at their house. Some of the kids are older and entertain the younger ones with activities.  With everyone bringing lots of food to share, it ended up being easy and enjoyable.   

While browsing online “couple” Halloween costumes and sifting through the ones-you-know-that-I’m-talking-about-that-you-don’t-wear-in-public, we saw THIS on Amazon and went from there.

The Big Bad Wolf Costume:

I used THIS shower cap tutorial as a guide to sew the night cap out of a thrifted shirt, adding a few inches of elastic so it would fit a man’s head.  I bought 1/4 yard of fur to shape into wolf ears and sewed those onto the shower cap.  I used the leftover piece to make a tail that Dillon just stuffed down his pants (you can’t see it in the pictures though—bummer). 

I found this beauty of a night gown at the thrift store also.

Dillon bought the teeth at Halloween City on sale and added one of my robes given me from my mother-in-law, my pajama bottoms, and his slippers. I told him I wasn’t happy with the fact that he fit into my pants.  But once I saw how tight they were, I got over it. 

He’s such a good sport ;).  I didn’t even ask him to ham it up for the pictures, but he delivered!

 

Little Red Riding Hood Costume:

While I took the kids’ pictures and since we were heading straight to our party after pics, I had C take a couple while I was dressed and in the woods. I wish Dillon had been with us, but he had to work until just before the party.  So that’s why my pictures are in the woods and his are not. 

For my cape, I actually used the same pattern I used for the Harry Potter costumes and just lengthened, lined, and modified it a bit. 

I found the basket and shoes at the thrift store, and just looked at pictures of Little Red Riding Hood costumes online to make the cummerbund thing (not sure really what else to call it).  I secured that with velcro, slanting one of the strips of velcro so that it fit better around my waist.

The dress may be familiar from when I did the Sewing Through the Decades series.   Details on the dress are posted HERE.  I did make a little petticoat slip with some petticoat tulle to go under the dress so it stuck out more. 

And there you have it!  Little Red Riding Hood and The Big Bad Wolf costumes—pretty easy!  And I laughed out loud after putting these pictures on the computer and seeing all the faces Dillon was pulling.  

I hope your Halloween was great!  My kids had a BLAST and looked so cute running from house to house with their capes flying behind them.  My favorite was hearing them yell “Happy Halloween!!!” as they ran to the next house. 

Happy Halloween! {Harry Potter Costumes}

Tonight C is Harry Potter (glasses he got from THIS awesome party).

D is Ron Weasley:

And Little Miss B is Hermione Granger:

With this Harry Potter lego sitting on the top of my sewing machine…

… I used Simplicity pattern 5512 as a guide for these 3 costumes.  I greatly altered the pattern pieces, but it was a great starting point for me. 

After my kids figured out what they wanted to be, I looked at Harry Potter robes and ties online, only to find that they are pretty pricey.  Buying one wouldn’t be bad, but times it by 3 and it’s too much for me!  I made these costumes for about $15.00 each.  Not as cheap as I had hoped, but the quality is better than what I would pay for online.  If I bought the robe and a tie, I was looking at at least $35.00 per costume for any that were decently reviewed. 

I added a lining to the robes, and a pocket for their wands (ordered off Amazon—they make a cool noise and everything). Thanks to Sabra for helping me figure out how to line them!

The 3 Gryffindor crests I ordered on ebay for $9.00 total, shipped.  They aren’t official, I’m sure, but they look great and my kids thought they were the coolest.

I really cheated on the ties and didn’t do them any sort of official way.  I learned before when I made ties that they take a long time to sew the correct way. 

So here’s a little short version of how I sewed them.  I traced a tie that fit the kids so there were two pieces.  Not long, just a few inches longer than the top of the tie I traced.  I cut strips for the stripes and made them kind of like single folded bias tape.  Then I sewed the stripes on, placed right sides together and left a space to turn on the side near the top narrow area.  I sewed around the edges minus the hole to turn, clipped the corners, turned, topstitched the hole, and ironed. 

I made a loop with the top part of the tie and topstitched down, then folded in half and sewed a couple stitches in the back to make it bunch. 

I made the neck band the same way as I do my bow tie neck bands and looped it through the ties.  Easy and SO cheap with the cheap-o Walmart fabric! 

I sewed on an elastic hair-band to secure the robe closed, with two buttons on either side. 

And for the vests, I just bought a cheap sweatshirt or t-shirt from the thrift store ($1.00 each), cut the necks to a V, and sewed on gray double folded bias tape.  Just a note:  I liked how the sweatshirt looked much better than the t-shirts!

(Tomorrow I’ll show you what the hubs and I were.  The kids were disappointed we didn’t dress up to go along with them, but we did dress as a “couple”.)

halloween shirts and other kid crafts.

I’m eating no-bake cookies for breakfast, at 10:00.  They have oatmeal in them so I call it a win.

My kids love love love to craft.  That’s understandable to us as crafters ourselves, right?  So I decided to let every Wednesday be the day they get to do a craft, as it is their early out day.  One craft per week + the holidays make it really easy to do this.

Last week we made stone spiders, found via eighteen25 from Rebecca Cooper.  Rebecca made a kid-friendly version that we followed HERE.  Oh my goodness, she made those stone spiders look so adorable with her wonderful photography.  And they ARE cute—just a bit different.  My kids didn’t pick out the nice round rocks, they wanted the crazy shaped ones.  They loved making them!

This week we made some Halloween shirts using freezer paper and bleach pens.  I love that the black turns an orange color!  Perfect.

Let me just tell you, that Haunted House one took forever while I was ironing the freezer paper on!  All those little pieces!  But it turned out awesome.

Last year we made these cookies and these shirts (my, how young they look!):

We bought those cheap wood shapes from Joann and painted those last year as well.

And this wasn’t a craft with the kids, but for my kids—using Cheri’s upcycled hat tutorial, I made these candy corn hats.  I love them! 

We also tried to make this spider together…though it was more work for me obviously.

It is always easy to craft with kids?  No way!  They get crazy and hyper, and they sometimes fight and get bossy.  But for the most part they are so happy and excited, and it ends up a good time spent together.

I think I can handle it once a week. 

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Bat Shirt: Tutorial and Download

 

I posted this on Every Crafty Endeavor a couple weeks ago.  Don’t forget to enter the Hadley Grace Designs giveaway HERE. 

I’m sure you’ve all seen the Country Living Bats from a couple years ago.  I know I was excited to make some for my own front door and then some for inside my house.  Out of all my Halloween decorations, these get the most comments.

It’s pretty self-explanatory, especially for those well seasoned in the freezer paper painting method. 

You’ll need:

-freezer paper
-cardstock
-paintbrush
-acrylic paint
-shirt
-bat shirt template (click HERE to download.  UPDATE:  For those wanting the file for your silhouette, email me and I can email it to you.  I don’t think there is any way I can share the link for that since you have to have the silhouette software to open it.  Alternatively, you can save the document as a picture and then import it and use the trace feature on your silhouette—or just email me since that is easier for you!).  This template is for a toddler size shirt—the size shirt I used was 3T.  You could use multiple templates however, to paint the bats onto a larger area if you want to.  To create the template, I used THIS bat.

Ok, so I’m spoiled and my hubby bought me a silhouette for Christmas last year, so I was able to use my trace feature and cut my freezer paper that way.  But I sure have done a fair amount of cutting my freezer paper by hand on a few different projects.  If I was to do that on this project, I’d probably simplify the shape of the bats a bit while cutting them out (if not using a silhouette, then trace the template onto the freezer paper and cut out the bats, or you can print onto the freezer paper—I’ve done that before but sometimes the freezer paper gets stuck in my printer and that’s no fun!)

Iron the freezer paper onto the shirt.  Make sure that you get the edges to stick down well so the paint doesn’t seep under.

Place a piece of thick paper (I use cardstock) between the layers of the shirt.

And paint away.  Dabbing the brush seems to work great and not lift up the freezer paper. Both my sons helped me paint this—it’s a great project for kids!

Once you are finished painting, you can peel off the freezer paper.  Just be careful not to get any paint on the shirt where you don’t want it!

Allow the paint to dry before removing the cardstock.  After it’s dry, iron over the paint on medium heat to “set” the paint so it doesn’t fade so much when you wash it. 

All done!  A brand new Halloween shirt.  My boys loved it so much they want one of their own now.  We might just use the bleach pen on black shirts. 
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