The Magic of Halloween

If you can't tell, Halloween is one of our favorite holidays. We love the magic of dressing up and pretending to be someone or something else for a bit. I guess that is why we put so much effort in it.



Nah, the reason we put so much effort into it is because of these three maniacs!



They are always reason enough for all the effort around here.

Fairy Princess Costume

I am sure this one is easy to figure out where the idea came from....what 3 year old girl DOESN'T want to be a fairy princess?



This costume was fairly easy to come by because she had most of it as dress up clothes or dance clothes from her sister. We like easy when it comes to costumes. Her leotard was from her big sister during her dancing days. The super cute skirt was a birthday gift from her Cousins McK and B-Man.



I made her fairy crown with silk flowers and pipe cleaners.



Ross whittled down a branch into a wand and I needle felted the star for the top of the wand.




And the necklaces were more Dollar Store jewelry that we always seem to have lying around the house. Grandma W had a spare set of purple wings in her costume bag and the tights and sparkly shoes were Peelu's own. (Okay, we did buy the shoes for her costume because they were so stinking cute. But they have since become a wardrobe staple.)




She was even cute when she fell and was a sad, fairy princess for a few moments.



But she truly loved her costume and these cute photos of her running around in the backyard, looking like a real fairy princess, make all the costume gathering worth it!

Cleopatra Costume

Not sure how this costume idea came up, except that I love Egyptian history, so I am sure I hugely encouraged Lil' mermaid when this idea came up. I think originally I wanted all of us to have Ancient Egyptian costumes, similar to our Viking fest from last year. But Lil' Mermaid is the only one who wanted to continue with the idea.



Grandma W. made the dress out of white muslin and the collar from gold felt and gold lame. We added a bit longer sleeves since our Halloween can be quite chilly here. You already saw how Lil' Mermaid herself sewed the beading on her collar. We found various types of gold trim that became her belt, and her crown. I used a gold pipe cleaner to make the snake shape for her
crown. We used Dollar Store beads for her bracelets and to hang down from her crown along the sides of her head. I found turquoise blue sandals also at the Dollar Store for her sandals. Then I dug out some liquid eyeliner and eyeshadow for her makeup. I think we also painted her nails and toenails a sparkly gold.



All in all, not too difficult to put together. And she made a very pretty Ancient Eqyptian Queen.

Harry Potter Costume

Yes, he wanted to be Harry again. Remember last school year's "Dress Like Your Favorite Character Day"? Well, Harry is one of my favorite characters as well. So we just beefed up our costume idea a bit more.

He still had his fleece cape, and Grandma W added a silky black wizard robe. We found a cheap reddish tie (that Granma W cut down a bit) and added gold stripes (like Harry's school uniform). He also wore his navy sweater to further look like Harry in his uniform.


We printed out the glasses from here, onto cardstock. And the lightning bolt scar was courtesy of my eyeliner.



Hedwig was crocheted by yours truly for the last Potter appearance.


The wand was cut off some of our cherry tree trimmings by Ross.


And a super fast Nimbus 2000 was of course crafted by the woodworker in the family.




Et voila.....Harry Potter, boy wizard of Central Oregon!

The 2010 Halloween Sweat Shop

Yes, it's that time of the year again. The Halloween Sweat Shop is open and feverishly crafting spectacular costumes. We've got an egyptian queen, a wizard and a princess to create. So far, the queen is consuming the majority of our creative juices. Grandma W has been enlisted, as usual, to sew the queen's royal gown (and the wizard's cape). So she decided the queen herself could sew her own beaded royal collar.



And she found out first hand, that once you enter the holiday crafts sweatshop....you are never the same again.....

Orange Tie-Dye

Our elementary school has a no-costume policy for Halloween but you can wear funny hats and "kinda" dress up in the spirit of Halloween. So the kids wanted to make some more orange shirts. A few years ago they had stenciled these Halloween shirts themselves. I found this pumpkin shirt tie-dye idea in Family Fun and thought it would fit the bill.

Ross helped them tie up their shirts in different designs.



Then we followed the RIT dye instructions.



We dried them on the laundry line - OF COURSE. And thought the designs were awesome.






We LOVED how they came out. And decided not too draw the pumpkin faces on with markers because the kids wanted to wear them past Halloween. I was glad they made that decision because they are pretty cool looking.

The Patch 2010

Our annual trip to the DD Pumpkin Patch with some of our best buds. We had beautiful weather and F-U-N!

Twin Teeter-totter-ing:


Cute Cowboys & Cowgirls:


Pumpkin Rolling:


Cow Feeding:


Bunny Feeding:


=Family Happiness