So about that one holiday I kind of skipped over...

Well, we DID actually celebrate Halloween.  I swear.  You just wouldn't know it to look around this here blog.  I did decorate the house.  Well, the outside anyway.  I did make our costumes.  I did dress my children in them, and my husband, and go to the church party and I did take my children trick-or-treating.  It seems that somehow I skipped over this particular holiday.  


And it would be a crying shame if I skipped it entirely, since, as I said, I actually sewed our costumes.  By myself.  Without patterns.  Or hot glue.


It's a first.


That said, you may remember from last year, that I like to do family themed costumes.  And as long as I can force my children to, we will be dressed as a group.  I picked our theme last year. 

I also picked our theme the year before - when bug was Einstein and mr, my growing mini belly and I were e=mc squared.  

And before that when bug was a giraffe and mr and I were safari guides.  

And two years before when I was a witch and mr was my black cat.

So I thought maybe it was time to let mr pick.  It didn't take him long at all to come up with an idea - Super Mario Brothers.

via

Huh.


K.


I have to admit, I wasn't looking forward to making those dresses... but the rest of it seemed pretty easy, so I went with it.  For mr's sake.

via

The boys of course, didn't require too much.  I found the overalls at a thrift store.  I was fortunate they had bug's size and some that mr could squeeze into.  I had to dye mr's because as you can see from my inspiration pictures, Luigi's overalls are obviously darker than Mario's.  mr said I was crazy and no one would know the difference.  HA!  Shows what he knows.  

bug already had the red shirt.  I couldn't for the life of me find a men's long sleeved T in green - or even in white that I could dye.  So I had to buy a woman's shirt and dye it.  Then I had to take the front up at the shoulders because the neckline was too revealing for mr's liking.  (The chest hair didn't look quite right, I'll admit.)  Don't tell anyone it was a woman's shirt, I don't think mr wants that broadcasted.  I got the hats in the women's department as well.  The green one was white that I dyed along with the shirt.  I cut the circles out of white felt and the letters out of red and green felt and machine stitched the letters to the circles.  Then I hand stitched the circles to the front of the hats.  I had to cut apart the back of bug's hat and add some elastic by stretching it as I sewed it on so that the hat would be a little smaller for him.  

Then I just had them wear their brown work shoes and some plain white gloves.  




The mustaches I'm really proud of though.  Out of everything I made, I think they are my favorites.  Once I decided to go with a more cartoony look than realistic, it just made sense to make all the accessories out of felt.  That included the mustaches.  Again, Luigi's is made from a darker brown felt because his hair is darker than Mario's.  I studied the pictures to get the right shape, then just drew it on the felt and cut two of each out.  I measured from the boys' ears to the side of their mouths and doubled it, cutting elastic that long.  I sandwiched the elastic in between the two mustache pieces on each side, folding it around so both ends were sandwiched and there was a loop hanging out of each side.  Then I sewed all around the mustache.  The loops go over their ears.  It worked way better than having a single band of elastic around the head.  Those things always fall down.  Don't worry, even though it's pretty simple, I'll be doing an actual tutorial for these coming up.

Moving on to me.  I honestly can't really tell you how I made my skirt.  I don't know.  It involved a rectangle of yellow and a rectangle of orange and some bunching and stitching around the top.  Then I just pinned it to elastic (like you would a circle skirt) and sewed.  I added ruffles of orange around the bottom.  It's not the best job in the world and it doesn't even have a waistband, but I saved mine until last and was running on empty.  Anyway, I paired it with a yellow shirt I had already.  I cut a scalloped collar out of an old white turtle neck shirt I never wore and then tacked it to the collar of the yellow shirt in the front, back and shoulders.  I wore plain white gloves as well.  And although I know Princess Daisy is supposed to have short sleeves, I had to wear long ones.  Do you know how cold Halloween is around here???  Then I made my accessories out of felt.  I just cut out the shapes, doubling them for durability and hot glued them all.  I had earrings and a brooch.

mini skirt came together much the same way as mine - trial and error.  I actually made hers twice, because I'm a perfectionist (ish) and the first one bothered me.  So I vowed to never use satin again.  Anyway, It was essentially created out of a rectangle with a slight flair to it.  Then I added the hot pink bunchy ruffly fabric around the top.  I just cut out a long rectangle, folded it in half, pinned it with the ends meeting in the middle front and sewed all around, then bunched up the short side that was hanging down in the front and sewed that up in a faux gather.  Make sense?  No?  Yeah, not to me either.  But it worked.  Then I sewed a blanket binding around the top of the skirt to use as a casing for the elastic.  Threaded the elastic through and ta-da!  I also made her a little tutu with hot pink tulle and the neck of a turtleneck shirt.  I'm totally doing a tutorial for that, don't worry.  She wore a white onesie with a short sleeved pink onesie on top and plain white gloves.  The long sleeves worked with her outfit since Princess Peach wears long white gloves.  I made some faux puffy sleeves for mini by sewing two rectangles into tubes and making casings at the top and bottom hems and threading in elastic the size of her arm.  She also got a felt brooch, but she doesn't have pierced ears, so no earrings.


I was pretty proud of the crowns, too.  Next to the mustaches, they were my favorite.  I just cut four pieces of crown shapes out of gold felt - two for each crown - and two pieces of crown shapes slightly smaller out of gold card stock - one for each crown.  I sandwiched the card stock in between two pieces of felt.  Then I sandwiched one end of a piece of elastic on one side of the crown and sandwiched the other end on the other side of the crown and sewed all the way around.  The card stock made the felt crown so much sturdier.  Then I hand sewed the ends of the crown shape together into an actual crown.  I just hot glued the felt jewel pieces on.  I was going to sew them, but as I said, I was running on empty, and I figured up to 25% of the costumes could be hot glued and I could still call them sewn.

So there you have it!  I was proud as we walked around and everyone knew who we were.  Princess Daisy isn't as well known as the rest, but most people got it.

If I did it over again, I would buy myself a straw hat, spray paint it white, and glue red polka dots on it.  I would dress in all white and wear the hat and be Toad.

That scary statue up there screamed and lifted his head off his shoulders and mini took off screaming.  First time she's been more scared than her brother.  True story.

*Be sure to check just below for all the fun parties I link to!