Halloween is upon us! My most favorite time of the year. I LOVE Halloween. It is two weeks after my birthday, and just a holiday that makes me super happy! You get to dress up in costumes and for just a few hours...you get to pretend to be someone else. It's fantastic! Especially when you are a big child at heart and have always loved dress up and pretend and the performing that goes along with it.
My other favorite part, well besides the candy, hahaha. Is creating the costumes. Growing up I can think of literally TWO years that I had a store bought costume. First year, I had a Popples costumes (and remember I was born in 1984 so you need to remember what those costumes were like...) Plastic, creepy and soooo simple. I loved them, ha!
The rest of the time I always had home made costumes that my Mother lovingly and patiently created for me and my little sister. A list of the beings I went as for Halloween....A baby clown
My other favorite part, well besides the candy, hahaha. Is creating the costumes. Growing up I can think of literally TWO years that I had a store bought costume. First year, I had a Popples costumes (and remember I was born in 1984 so you need to remember what those costumes were like...) Plastic, creepy and soooo simple. I loved them, ha!
The rest of the time I always had home made costumes that my Mother lovingly and patiently created for me and my little sister. A list of the beings I went as for Halloween....A baby clown
A Popple (1980's costumes all the way! LOL)
A cute and adoooorable little brown mouse where my Mother crafted the ears and tail herself out of wire and felt. And I wore a brown sweat pants and shirt and she painted on whiskers and nose.
A cute and adoooorable little brown mouse where my Mother crafted the ears and tail herself out of wire and felt. And I wore a brown sweat pants and shirt and she painted on whiskers and nose.
I was a Princess Fairy in Kindergarten and actually got first place in a costume contest. (home made costume)
I have been a Unicorn (another home made costume similar to mouse costume, only all white and she used a Styrofoam cone to make the horn, and yarn to make my tail ;)
I have also gone as a white rabbit (the rabbit teeth were painful and I hated them, they just slipped into your mouth but kept cutting into my gums) (Again same costume concept as mouse and unicorn).
I've been a hobo which was so fun! Fake beard, old clothes that we got to rip up and get dirty, and a crazy haired wig and a trucker hat. Complete with a huge stick with a big bandana tied on it with stuff placed inside (I think my Mother might have just shoved in some pillow batting to give it the appearance of being full?)
I have been "the lady in black" which was a 'ghost' that 'haunted' my school back home. THAT was possibly my favorite costume. I scared a lot of people who really believed that legend.
I have been a Unicorn (another home made costume similar to mouse costume, only all white and she used a Styrofoam cone to make the horn, and yarn to make my tail ;)
I have also gone as a white rabbit (the rabbit teeth were painful and I hated them, they just slipped into your mouth but kept cutting into my gums) (Again same costume concept as mouse and unicorn).
I've been a hobo which was so fun! Fake beard, old clothes that we got to rip up and get dirty, and a crazy haired wig and a trucker hat. Complete with a huge stick with a big bandana tied on it with stuff placed inside (I think my Mother might have just shoved in some pillow batting to give it the appearance of being full?)
I have been "the lady in black" which was a 'ghost' that 'haunted' my school back home. THAT was possibly my favorite costume. I scared a lot of people who really believed that legend.
I went as Medussa one year, that was a costume that I made by myself, LOVED it.
I have wore a poodle skirt as well.
I even went as little Bo Peep one year.
Those are just the costumes I remember, and I'm sure if I called my Mother she'd know some of the other things I dressed as.
Those are just the costumes I remember, and I'm sure if I called my Mother she'd know some of the other things I dressed as.
My little sister went as Little Red Riding Hood for Halloween as a baby in a costume my Mother made for her.
My Mother also made a Statue of Liberty costume for my sister, which was probably my sister and I's favorite costume that our Mother made!
When my kids came along I could not wait to dive in and start making their costumes! Only problem with that...it didn't happen that way! My daughters first Halloween we wanted to go as a herd of cows. Instead she went as a baby calf and I was a rock star and my husband was an Indian.
Her second Halloween she was a Pirate! I bought HER costume but my husband and I made ours, and then we designed her pirate ship (transformed her huge Radio Flyer wagon into a pirate ship).
She has went as a little clown too, again another bought costume.
I did make my kids all in to puppies one year! They were so cute! The kids were puppies, and my husband and I were the dog catchers.
Once the twins were a little older, we went as a family of pirates again and it was AWESOME. Even decorated up the van.
I LOVE family oriented costumes. I love themes. It's so much fun! Too bad my children don't always seem to agree. Last year the boys were Mario and Luigi, and my daughter was Robin Hood. The boys have also done super heroes. My daughter has done the Princess thing like three times. It isn't always easy to get my husband to dress up either, he's kind of a party pooper. He didn't get to experience a lot of these fun childhood things growing up, so he doesn't really care for them as an adult and thinks that the things I do with the kids are often stupid and pointless, but he gets dragged along anyway, and for the most part is a good sport.
My daughter made her own costume one year when she went as Fancy Nancy from her favorite book. And besides the year she went as a puppy with her brothers...that's the only time she's had a home made costume, which has always bummed me out. Made me feel like a slacker for not making them myself when my mother always made mine (to be fair she had ONE CHILD to make a costume for, for a very long time because I was an only child until I was 10 and a half). I have three kids, twins and my daughter...close in age to make costumes for so I TRY to cut myself some slack, ha.
This year, my daughter wanted to be her HERO. Which just so happens to be POISON IVY from Batman. I was really really trying to convince my sons to go as Batman and Robin. No dice. They weren't going for it. They seem to be over the whole super hero thing. Bummer.
So my daughter I set around finding a Poison Ivy costume, only to be highly disappointed. The ones for kids were too...childish. They did no justice to Poison Ivy at all. So I looked at the adult costumes.
OH. MY. GOSH.
No. Just no way was my daughter wearing any of that. No. Most of them just looked like a bra and panty set in green that the girls were parading around in. NO THANKS. Not on MY 9 year old. So I knew we had to make our own costumes to get what we wanted. So we browsed through the history of Poison Ivy and looked at various costumes she has wore throughout her time in the comics and on TV. My daughter was really drawn to the 1995 Uma Thurman version of Poison Ivy. She thought she was the greatest Poison Ivy ever (I have to agree she's always been my favorite too, but I had not told this to my daughter). So we watched that particular Batman and Robin movie that she was in. My daughter was entranced, and was further driven to BE Poison Ivy.
Above: The photo of Uma Thurman that was our inspiration for our own Poison Ivy costume. (Not my photo, we just used it as a reference point on creating our costume).
I went to a second hand shop in town and found two green dresses hanging in the formal wear section. I grabbed them both and brought them home for my daughter to try on. On a full grown woman they would have been pretty short dresses, but on my 9 year old who is just a couple inches shy of being five feet tall, the dresses fit below her knee. Not bad! I let my daughter choose which dress she wanted to use as her Poison Ivy dress. She did not choose the one I expected, she chose the dark green one that had ugly roses on the shoulder. Not at all the one I wanted her to choose, but it was her costume and that's the dress she liked best, so ok that's what we went with.
Picking out the dresses was as far as I got for quite some time. I just let the dresses hang in the closet. It was October before I searched out a few leaves, but I was finding all fall leaves, and I needed some greenery to use as well, but it's fall but this point, have fun finding green leaves in the arts and craft stores. (Think fall and Christmas....yeh...)
I did do the alterations that needed to be made so the dress fit better, so that was fun sewing that, I don't do too many alterations on dresses that are already sewn together. But I got it done.
I went ahead and picked up some of the red/orange flowers, and by some miracle found ONE bunch of green leaves and snagged them, but it wasn't enough. A Co worker heard my problem and he and his wife went to some yard sales and found a box full of fake grape vines! They were perfect!! I then picked up a few more orange leaves. Just a few days ago I got so lucky and found some green ivy to use in the head piece.
Monday I sat down and started hot gluing on leaves which yeh. Well. Ya know. I ended up having my daughter put the dress on so I could finish gluing on the leaves. I only burned myself a few hundred times with scalding hot glue.
When the costume was done I cajoled my daughter to try it on again and we dug out my make up (of which I HAVE A TON) and I set to work fixing her all up, and placed on the wig that we had found at the store. I took her out around the neighborhood and we did some photos. We had a BLAST. Both in making the costume, and doing up the make up and going out to do the photos. We have a few other ideas planned now as well.
I just wanted to share a few photos from her little Poison Ivy photo shoot!!
Above: I think this one is my absolute FAVORITE.
Above: This one comes in as a second favorite!
I love the costume because it isn't "childish" but it isn't "inappropriate or suggestive" either. I didn't want her looking too "grown up" and stuff. I wanted to keep it modest, but fun and still bring out the "best" in Poison Ivy.
She is happy and comfy and she says it's the best costume ever.
We have a few other costumes we're planning too, just because we can. So excited! My daughter has always been a big fan of shows like Face Off, and she watches You Tube tutorials about making monster make up and what not all the time. I figure, might as well encourage something she is interested in!
OH and we spent around $14 creating this costume. The most expensive thing was buying the wig which was $5.
Always loving HALLOWEEEEEEN
Mom Circus
