Playing Dress Up

One of my favorite parts of Halloween is the costumes. I finished the girl's costumes this weekend -- and so this afternoon we took them over to Mike's parents to have a barbecue and took some photos of them all dressed up.

First they jumped in the leaves, of course...

Sierra's idea for her costume was intrinsically tied to having a matching costume for her doll, so we used some of the leftover material from Lily's to make her doll a matching outfit too. I made a similar 50's girl costume for Lily when she was tiny, so I used the same poodle I'd designed in the past for Sierra's only printed it bigger, and smaller :)

It was fun to show Lily some things about sewing and get her involved in helping make the costume for her doll. She got a little bored, and didn't help with every step, but she was so excited about how it turned out. Over the years I have gotten a lot more comfortable winging these kinds of projects because I like to save the money on patterns, and I have made enough skirts and vests by now I can whip them out pretty quickly. I have usually had more time than money and have been able to get fabric from Grandma's stashes to use for the major parts of my projects. I saved the red from my mom's stash for Lily's gypsy skirt and her shirt was a piece of a sheet I had saved from another project. I was a little bit unsure about pulling off the shirt, but I found a you tube tutorial about how to make it really easily, and Lily likes it so much she wore it plain to the pumpkin patch, and asked if she could wear it to school tomorrow, too! Mike says I should make her some more just to wear - I must say - she does look nice in it.

I really did not think I was going to have time to make costumes from scratch for Lily and Sierra this year now that I am working full time. But when the time came down to it, and they just assumed it would be business as usual -- I did not want them to be disappointed and feel another downer to my working than they already feel... Luckily, I have a little flexibility with my schedule and worked extra this month to get ready for a big fundraising event and had a little time I needed to take off - so I spent pretty much all day Friday sewing and got them done. Good thing I have gotten so much practice over the years and have gotten faster!

Here are my lovely gypsy and adorable poodle skirt girl!

Bring on Halloween!