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

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

There were tons of gnome sightings this weekend in Pensacola. I’m in the process of sorting through the photos now and will post ‘em shortly. Happy Monday everyone.

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

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

We had a great Halloween! We went as Olive Oyl and Popeye. We tried to stay as close to the cartoon as possible, and make everything with quality and comfort in mind. Here’s what we did…

Popeye. We patterned the top after the US Navy’s dress blues jumper. I used black, red, and blue twill. The collar I had to construct after I’d sewn the jumper. I added black bias tape and iron-on star patches for the embellishments. The blue on the sleeves is slightly stuffed with poly-fill. The pants are made using a vintage bellbottom pattern and twill dyed royal blue. I made the pockets with flower linings and extra large belt loops. The buttons are large plastic buttons that we spray painted yellow, and the belt is an extra uniform belt that Garth had, dyed yellow. The hat is one of Garth’s uniform hats, and the shoes are his regular brown shoes. Garth made the corn cob pipe from frozen corn-on-the-cob that we had in the freezer (he microwaved it to death) and some scrap wood we found in the garage. His spinach can is made out of a large can of chili (that Garth ate in one sitting-ick!), an old poster re-painted with a spinach label, and some green scrap fleece machine and hand sewn into spinachy clumps. The arms were the hardest. We spent a good afternoon discussing and planning how to do it and eventually we purchased several pounds of Crayola’s Model Magic. We sculpted the arms to the size we wanted over Garth’s and then very carefully used a razor blade to cut them down the sides (I only gave Garth one little cut!). They were placed on Garth’s arms, covered in thin strips of white knit (to cover the transition and even out the tone), then covered with three layers of tights and panty hose, and finally, tattoos were drawn on the forearms using a sharpee.

Olive. Olive is by far the easier costume. I used a basic shirt pattern to make the shirt from a slightly stretchy polyester blend knit. I added the sleeves and collar using a similar white knit. The skirt is an older version of the US Navy female dress blues that I found at a thrift store. I added a wide yellow grossgrain ribbon. Long white socks and a pair of Garth’s old boots, spray painted brown, finished it off. I wore the skirt higher than my natural waist becasue it made my legs look longer, and because my 5-month-pregnant-belly fit better that way.

We had so much fun! Garth re-enlisted in the morning in his costume (I couldn’t take my camera in, but I think we’ll be able to get some of the photographers pics), and we spent the evening giving candy to the trick-or-treaters, carving our pumpkins, watching movies, and eating our homemade pizza and homemade root beer. Yum!

Love to everyone that I love!
Laura. =)

I’ve opened a new shop, elle industries on etsy because I want my costumes to have their own space. I’m also going to be selling on ebay again this year. So far I only have one dress (my toddler Sally dress, so cute!) up for sale on etsy and ebay, but more will be coming soon!

Also, life plans are changing with this little muffin in my tummy, and I’m worried that there are lots of things that I’ll never get around to doing (I wanted to go to Mardis Gras in New Orleans this year, but it’s too close to baby time), so I’m planning a babymoon to New Orleans around Halloween. It’s supposed to be almost as spooky and cool to visit at Halloween as Salem, MA…and it’s two hours away. (And neither Garth nor I have never been except to drive through on the interstate, or fly out of the airport). So, ideas? Anyone been there that wants to share the best of New Orleans?

love ya’ll!

xo elle