Circus sideshow acts for Halloween 2011! We threw these together in a day or two from a few thrifted items and some things around the house (and a lovely lovely 3/4 yard of tiny sequin fabric). We certainly could have taken them to a more extravagent place if we’d had more time- but I love how sweet and charming they are!

Ginger was the tattooed lady. I made her the little sequined jumper and we thrifted the shoes. I spent an agonizing 20 minutes on two occassions sitting with Ginger and a handful of temporary tattoos and a bowl of water trying to get her to sit still long enough to apply them. Ginger does not stand still (as you can see from these photos). The tattoos themselves were from my collection and a cross-section of my favorite things- sailors, jack skellington, and superheros.

Jack was the strong man. His unitard was made from a ladies spandex blend shirt, his boots from a knock-off Dooney & Burke cosmetic case, and his barbell was made by Garth using bouncy balls, pvc, tape, and spray paint. His little eyeliner moustache was a big hit and I added a few little curlycue chest hairs that he couldn’t stop looking at.

Garth was a human cannonball. He put on a pair of his Navy coveralls, converse shoes, swimming goggles, and a helmet that he’d painted and then wrapped himself in a sheet of super dense foam. We’d hoped to paint flames onto the foam and add some flair to his coveralls, but we ran out of time. It’s pretty great all the same.

And I was the bearded lady. I coulda/woulda/shoulda made a cool dress but I just put something on that matched the circus colors we had going on and made myself a little beard from scraps of a felted sweater and yarn that sorts matche my hair.

We went to a trunk or treat with barbells sticking out of the trunk and Garth’s cannon between the seats. On Halloween night we made our traditional soda with dry ice and had mummy dogs and Jack got a thrill out of handing out candy to the trick-or-treaters. And now we have a huuuuuge bucket of candy still. It’ll probably last us until new years at least.

Can’t wait until next Halloween! Well, ok, I can, but only because Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Valentines, and Easter are coming. =)

hairy kisses,
the bearded lady

Costume season is in full swing for me which means that I am stitching Sally and Moishe in the car everywhere we go, in my bed before sleep, and at the kitchen table. Little snips of black yarn are everywhere, as are my scissors and pins. But golly do I LOVE making costumes. And, I love that in a few weeks time I’ll be able to buy a new fridge thanks to Halloween.

Dontcha just love the sweet little kiddos modeling for me? If I keep making these for years and years this could be quite a sweet little anthology. Aaaaaaannnnd what are we going to be this year? I have no idea. We are pretty sure that we want to all coordinate since we know in a few years the kids’ll want to be whatevers trendy and Mom & Dad will want to be Mary Poppins and Bert. Any ideas? How are all ya’ll going to dress up?

ecks OH!

elle

I know that Halloween is long gone and it’s time for Christmas-ie things, but the accident really screwed up my to-do’s and I am just now getting around to finally doing a proper costume post. So, without further excuses, I present to you the fabulous gnome family costumes.

We chose these costumes because we thought that they would be fairly easy to assemble (we chose them less than a week before Halloween) and comfortable enough for the parents as well as the kids- and we were right. We liked wearing them so much that we wore them almost non-stop from Friday afternoon right on through Sunday evening.

Now let’s start with the Papa gnome and make our way down to the baby gnome, shall we?

For Papa gnome we bought some blue corduroy and Garth used one of his long sleeve PT shirts to make a pattern. The sweater tights were purchased at Target. The hat I made using a felted wool sweater. The beard is a piece of fleece in the shape of a beard with lines of wool roving sewn into place by machine and tiny elastic loops for the ears. Garth wore a leather belt and leather shoes that were already in his closet. If we had more time we would have fashioned some sort of boot for him and (ahem…) hemmed his tunic.

For Mama gnome I tweaked a Simplicity pattern slightly to have a sweet peter pan collar. I used a yellow linen/rayon blend (that I dyed a peachier color since when I got it home I didn’t really like the yellow) and a polka dotted quilting cotton for the lining and collar. The hat was fashioned that same as Papa’s out of a red wool sweater. The thigh-high socks I purchased as a ren fair several years ago and that apron is vintage. I braided my hair into two braids at my ears and wore clogs. I really wanted to wear some red chunky mary janes, bust couldn’t find any on the short notice. My dress was (and still is) unhemmed as well and I wanted to make an apron that matched Ginger’s but the little things didn’t quite get done.

Jack gnome was my favorite one I think. He had an orange felted hat, fashioned the same as Mama and Papa’s. His beard, made just like Papa’s but smaller, wasn’t even worn long enough for a photo. I sewed the jacket out of a lovely brown linen from a little boy’s trenchcoat pattern. The leggings we purchased at Target and the shoes were thrifted. We purchased two belts from the thrift store and put the best parts together for his belt. I had a pair of snow boots that I had purchased at the thrift store meaning to spray paint them- but I’m sort of glad that I didn’t- those little suede velcro shoes were great. Jack loved wearing this and kept his hat on most of the time. He looked so so so adorable.

I made Ginger gnome’s dress out of a lovely plum linen/rayon blend. I used mustard wool felt for the peter pan collar and scalloped strips of it to also add to the hem. The apron was a little too small for her- I made it from some vintage flocked polka dot fabric, patterning it after my favorite vintage apron. Her leggings were from Target- I purchased them last Christmas from the dollar bin before we even knew we were having a girl. The hat is the same as the rest of the family’s in pink. We knew that we were going to be driving her around in the stroller so I draped a green knit fabric over it and safety pinned wool felt flowers (remnants from the hats!) to it to create her own little flower bed! She was so dreamy floating down the street in her garden carriage.

SO FUN.

For more fun check out past years costumes, Popeye and Olive Oyl, and Peter Pan, Wendy, and Captain Hook.

Can’t wait till next year when we have two toddlers!

lots o’ love
mama gnome

Saturday. I worked the market in the morning (for the last time!) dressed in my costume. I was surprised at how many people didn’t know I was dressed up- I suppose that I do wear some strange things sometimes. Stripey socks, yes. Bright dress, yes. Apron and pointy wool hat? no. Later that evening we went as a family to a little Halloween carnival. We got there too late for the costume contest and to purchase tickets. Since tickets were required to do any of the activities, or buy any of the food items, we really just spent the whole time waiting in line for the haunted hay ride. It was worth the wait. We all loved it- little Ginger slept thought the whole things, screams and all.

Sunday. We went to church in the morning and got into our costumes after naps just to take photos at the park. We carved pumpkins on the front porch as the trick-or-treaters came. I am always amazed at the trick-or-treaters in this neighborhood. Less than half of them dress up. Many of them don’t say trick-or-treat, and waaaaay too many don’t say thank you. So, it’s like strangers in street clothes walking onto your porch and holding out a bag to you that you then put candy into and then they walk away without saying a word. And the age of these strangers? Some were elementary aged. Some were high school aged. A few were adults. Yeah. We got adults (sans kids, sans costumes) trick-or-treating at our house this year. Adults that were older than us. Wierd.

I’ll share a little more about the making of the costumes tomorrow or shortly thereafter.
Lovely lovies,
elle

The last few weeks before Halloween were crazy for me! I made 7 Moishe costumes- skipping meals, showers, and sleep to send each one out on time. Each one takes about 20 hours to complete. I made my first adult-sized Moishe and I made a set for 4 month-old twin boys. I took some photos before I sent them out and I just wanted to share these. One day I’d like to do more of the monsters from Where the Wild Things Are.

I had so much fun photographing myself wearing it- and it was one of those days where everything just works and the lighting is magical.

I finished the smallest ones for the twins in our nola hotel room and Mr Jack tried it on for me and coooperated for eactly three pictures before losing control. Luckily I got this shot.

So there you have it- the largest and smallest Moishe costumes that I created this season. I want now to start thinking about things to make for winter, but I know that I am already behind the game. I must plan better next year so that my Halloween making doesn’t overtake my Christmas making.

until I have something more interesting to say,
Laura. =)

We were working up until the very last moment to get these together! They were pretty simple- as I used patterns for almost everything. Garth did most of his costume by himself! (it’s really not that amazing, hes actually really crafty). Here’s what we did:

Peter Pan. We used a soft cotton jersey and a pirate pattern for the tunic. We purchased a darker green material for the leggings and I pinned the fabric around garth’s legs and then sewed along my pin line to make them. He made his own hat using two triangular shapes of fabric, and I made the little red feather for it out of red fleece. We used a spat pattern for the booties, and garth made himself a little belt/sword sheath out of the leftover fabric.

Wendy. I used a costume pattern and some nice almost-shiney-slightly-stretchy polyester. I had to modify the pattern to raise the bustline, shorten the hemline, and create the poof on the sleeves. I really enojoyed curling my hair into ringletts. I bought a box dye to dye my hair back to brown, but ran out of time…

Captain Hook. I found a pattern for a childs pirate costume that I used for this costume’s shirt, jacket, and bloomers, with some modifications. I added a flounce to the shirt and straightened the jacket. Garth picked out embossed red velvet for the jacket and it was stunning! I made the hat, sewed large black yarn onto the edges, and Garth cut a feather from our feather duster to add to the band. Mr Jack wore girly tights. Aunt Kat supplied the awesome sword.

sorry about the shoddy photos. Our camera has been having focusing problems, it was twilight, and Mr Jack was very wiggly.

more super things are coming including a rewind of our trip to nola and some rad news about the xoelle enterprise.
Stay tuned friends.

xo
elle

I make costumes. I am used to spending the month of October in my pajamas night and day, eating hot pockets when I remember to eat, and watching too much daytime tv and I sew and sew and sew. This year I have a little helper, Mr. Jack. Trying to stay on track with what I used to be able to do (pre-motherhood) has meant that many other things have slipped by the wayside. Like cleaning. Cooking meals. Sweeping floors. Taking walks. Grocery Shopping. and cleaning. Nothing has been put in it’s place or even put back in the fridge for two weeks- and it looks like a hurricaine ripped through here (minus the water). (Thankk goodness for a super sweet husband who took it upon himself to do some dishes and run some laundry, or we’d be wearing the same undies as last week).
The end is near however and the week ahead of me is the last that I’ll be making costumes (three Moishe’s and a set of Peter Pan characters). Everything will ship next Thursday and Jack and Garth and I will be off to New Orleans and Oak Alley plantation for a much needed weekend of r&r.

I have much to share with you wonderful people- but first, I must dig myself out of the living room and find my way to the kitchen to put a pizza in the oven- it’s Thursday night and Thursday night=pizza & root beer=The Office.

lots of eckses and ohs
elle

It’s Moishe! I just recently learned that Maurice Sendak, during the adaptation of his book to opera, named the characters Tzippy, Moishe, Bruno, Emile, and Bernard- after relatives. I made my first Moishe costume last year and made more mistakes than I care to remember. This year the process was a wee bit easier on me and I think that the costume benifited from my experience. It still took about 20 hours- but with all of those tiny scales to cut out and sew in and the head and tail hair to hand root- I don’t know how to make it go quicker…

I am also making Sally dresses like a mad woman. I really enjoy the process- it’s lots of hours in front of my sewing machine- but I think that it’s just the way that Sally would have done it! This past weekend I made a dress for a three month old- it is by far the most adorable Sally dress I have ever made.

And finally, Mr Garth and Mr Jack and I need your help picking out our Halloween costumes! Garth and I each wrote a list of our top ten ideas and we narrowed down both lists until we each had only one left. To be fair we thought that we would have our friends and family decide. Here are the two choices:
one. Jack in the box antena ball dude (garth), hamburger (laura), order of fries (jack)
two. Peter Pan (garth), wendy or tinkerbell (laura), and Captain Hook (jack).
Leave me a comment or e-mail or tweet or text or esp and let me know what ya’ll think. We’ll be tallying the votes tonight and deciding. And if anyone needs costume ideas feel free to hit me up- we’ve got a list that’ll last us at least the next 15 years.

xoxo
elle

xo
elle

In other news, I think that I might slowly be getting better, but it seems that everytime I say that to someone, I have to stay in bed for four days and drink celery broth. So, nevermind. I’m not feeling better. I’m intending to stay this sick the rest of my pregnancy.

By the way, Garth has taken to calling me Your Pregnancy, as if it were a title, like, Your Excellency. It’s pretty hilarious the things that that kid thinks up.

Loves!
Laura!