making a truck costume

Halloween is done and dusted for another year. But I know next year there will be a new crop of mums & dads making vehicle costumes out of cardboard boxes and so I put together some notes on ours. It's definitely easier to figure out homemade costumes in this blogging age — we quickly looked at a handful of truck costumes before making our yellow tractor trailer costume and it definitely sped it up.

One thing we did which turned out to be really fun (and useful and safety-ish) was adding headlights, reflectors and headlights. We did the whole thing very cheaply and fairly quickly.

My notes are here. I've put a few more pictures after the jump. As usual Auggie looks very serious while holding still and all the smiling shots are super blurry ^_^

the witching hour

Oh, you know how it is. You meant to do the costume ages ago, or you did and then somebody changes their mind, or you've suddenly spilled orange juice all over the back... and you need a last-minute costume.

In our case, Auggie's costume for halloween is very bulky (it's a truck) and we've realized he can't really wear it to a little party we're going to or he'll have a hard time running around indoors. So we're saving the big costume for Wednesday and improvising for the party.

Here are some of my favourite last-minute (or just easy) costume ideas and tutorials as well as some free printable masks, all from pinterest.

First, for our purposes as the Windy, Foggy crew, this cloud costume idea from Sarah Illenberger.

bat | cat hat

This is a good October Saturday project if you knit: bat or cat or superhero hat/mask pattern. Notes and information here.

If you don't knit, I bet you could sew together 2 squares of fleece or knit fabric and cut out some eye holes. The pattern gives dimensions.

Lucky star necklace

Noodling around with lucky star necklaces and garlands with black and kraft paper strips ordered from the origami resource centre with knotted linen thread. These would be pretty at Christmas, too.

Every time I make these I sing the Madonna song in my head, it is impossible not to — I just think of you and I start to glow and I need your light and, baby, you know.

Glow-in-the-dark lucky star papers. Maybe we'll save them for halloween.

Our giveaway winner for October

Congratulations to Jackie, our giveaway winner. (We choose our winners by random draw).

Thanks to everyone who entered our contest. We've had a chance to visit some of your sites, exciting! We have a new giveaway coming up next weekend.

Have a happy hallowe'en.

Homemade tiger

This post has moved.

Pinterest

Pinterest is pretty fun, it's like an enormous mood board. I've set up a windy board, so it's easy to follow, and also to find projects at a glance. You can visit the boards without being a member. We won't post everything to pinterest, but we will update it regularly.

moustache day (and a printable template)

There are many ways to make a good moustache if you cannot grow your own.

Here is our method (PDF template). If you cut this out of stiff paper, it should clip right to your nose. If that doesn't work (or if you'd like to use felt instead) then just attach it to a string or elastic and tie it around the back of your head. No one will recognize you....

You can also draw one on with face paint, you can buy a wooden one on a stick from collage collage, or a plastic one from a kit from dandelion kids.


If you want to make a very realistic moustache, Martha Stewart has very thorough tuturial, which is probably the best one available online. You can even get a tasty chocolate moustache and eat it when you have finished wearing it!



If you happen to have the actual ability to grow a real moustache, you can grown one for charity with Mustaches for Kids.

(top image from Regional Assembly of Text)