Halloween Costumes

After 'skipping' a year in 2012, we decided to reinstate our annual Halloween party this year.  We both decided to go as Mexican 'Day of the Dead' skeletons.  

I made my costume from an old bed sheet.  I used 'Pattern Y' from Yoshiko Tsukiori's 'Stylish Dress Book'.  I spent a couple of days embroidering a colourful pattern of the front.  It took a a fair few hours, but I made the most of it and enjoyed the chance to relax by sitting on the 'Poang' and listening to ghost stories on Librivox as I embroidered.....

I hadn't done much embroidery before, so had to learn a few lessons along the way.  

I accessorised my costume with some bringtly-coloured jewellery, and bought a flowery headdress from a costume shop.  So, altogether, my costume only cost me €6!

Simon's outfit consisted mainly of his 'normal' clothes (chords, a black shirt and a waistcoat).  We found a neckerchief in the fancy dress box, borrowed the sombrero, and bought the rifle and bullets.  His outfit cost €10!

The face-painting was all Simon's handiwork.  He did a brilliant job, I have to say!!!   

Would you like to see???

And a bit of a scary one to finish up with.....

Now our faces have been scrubbed and all the decorations and outfits are packed away, we're starting to think about next year's costumes.....

Any suggestions???

Carly

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Halloween Handicrafts

As promised in my last post, this time I’m going to share some of our Halloween crafting projects with you. 

First of all, here’s our pumpkin.  I'm rather fond of him!

He was carved (as is tradition in our house) by the Mister.  Can you guess which character was the inspiration behind the pumpkin’s face?  After finishing the carving, my multi-talented other-half used the goo from the inside to make a yummy pumpkin soup!

Here are some photos of our house, all dressed up and ready for our annual Halloween party.  It’s lucky I remembered to take these photos BEFORE the party, as it didn’t look quite the same afterwards!

We hung bats from ALL the lights – they were super-easy to make (just cardboard cut-outs folded down the middle and hung up with thread).  We put spider webs and big plastic spiders EVERYWHERE, including on our bonsai tree and all our pictures – another easy-peasy but effective decoration!  I made the cauldron from papier-mâché a few years ago (when I was dressing up as a witch for a Halloween dress-up day at school).  Now we use it to store sweeties for trick-or-treaters.

Notice that there’s nothing particularly scary about our decorations???  I prefer my Halloween decorations to be more ‘cute’ than ‘bloodcurdling’!  "Sorry!" to those of you who were expecting a bit of gore!  

And..... here are our costumes.....

I made my dress and my halo.  And my mom helped me to re-cover a wing frame with some pretty, starry tulle.  That task was WAY trickier and more fiddly than I’d anticipated!  It was a good job my mom was here to defuse my frustrations, otherwise the wings may well have ended up bin-bound!!!  Thank you, mom!!!!!  The devil’s horns and fork were homemade too (good old papier-mâché).  And we crafted a devil’s tail from some red fabric, stuffing and some garden wire.  Apologies for the less-than-great quality of the costume photos!

So, they were our Halloween handicrafts.  Now they’re all packed away in the Halloween box, ready for another year and another party.

I hope you all had a fun Halloween, dear readers!

 

Until next time.....

Carly

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