Costume Bonanza

  

 Halloween is my favorite time of the year. It is over and I am a little depressed, but I can look back at all the awesome photos I took and feel a little bit better. Pretty much the only time I use my sewing machine is to make Halloween costumes. This year Charlie wanted to be a mummy and Jack wanted to be a ninja. I was hyped up to make both. I know I could have bought them both, but I love the challenge of creating something from nothing. The ninja costume I sewed out of a shiny black material, added a patterned black band for a belt, and a red sash. A black set of long under-ware went under his costume. I found a simple way to make a ninja mask out of a black t-shirt. My husband helped Jack make throwing stars which we attached with hot glue. The ninja swords he broke after the first time wearing his costume...they were cheap plastic. His crotch ripped out of his pants the first time he jumped into a ninja crouch, but I was ok with that, since I have no formal training in sewing, and my sewing machine decided to stop working. I hot glued them back together.

For the Mummy I took tips from a cool website. I tore the gauze material into strips, dyed them with tea, dried them in the dryer (BAD idea. Next time lay them out to dry), and hand stiched most of them to his white long under-ware. I learned that you can NOT actually wrap the strips around the long under-ware or it will not come back off your child. So instead I draped and pinned each one and stitched it into place. Charlie was pretty patient for a 5 year old boy! He had to try the costume on about 4 times. We ended up hot gluing on the final strips and the spider on. The headpiece was pretty fun to make. My grandma recommended making a paper mache base. I measured Charlie's head, blew up a balloon to that same size, then used loads of modge podge to glue on cheesecloth. Once it dried I popped the balloon and sewed the gauze strips onto it. It turned out comfortable and awesome. Charlie got a lot of compliments at school on his awesome mummy costume, as did I!

 The kids had a blast at school, at the Water Street Spooky Fiesta, where they saw the Oscar Meyer Weiner Mobile and ran around like spooks! Then of course there was trick or treating. There are a few houses that go ALL OUT for Halloween, decorating their entire yards and front porches. I want to be one of those people someday.

I also saw lots of great adult costumes at my work,all Halloween weekend. Below are some of the best costumes I have seen. Many are my friends. Great costumes guys! My husband and I are in there as hobo clowns. I found most of the pieces for our costumes at Goodwill. I also attached lots of patches and altered my dress to be puffier. I was pretty proud of our makeup too, especially my husband's. He won the costume contest at Rhythm Kitchen Music Cafe for his awesome costume!

Until next year, HAPPY HAUNTING!

Andy Warhol- Picture Person Project

boys testing out my art project for picture person, originally uploaded by cocomama1.

Today I went to my son's kindergarten class as Picture Person, to talk about Andy Warhol. There were lots of artist's we could pick from, as Picture Person, and Andy Warhol was NOT one of them. I wanted to do him anyway, because he is one of my favorite artist's and my son really likes him too. So i searched around town and ended up calling our local museum, Lakeview. Even though they did not have a copy of the print I wanted, they were very nice and printed me a good color copy of the print, Grevy's Zebra, along with some info on it.

For the project, I wanted to let the kids decorate their own Zebras. I traced a simplified version of the Zebra onto a thin piece of cardboard, then using am exacto-knife, I cut out a stencil. After the stencil was done I used white acrylic gesso and painted the image onto black paper.

Once the copies were dry, I let the kids test out their some different things on the paper. They tried multi-colored chalk, bright crayons, glitter glue, and bright colored puffy paint. Everything worked well except for glitter glue. Crayons showed up best on top of the white lines. The puffy paint really added a lot to zebra, traced along some of the white lines. We made sure and did the paint last. For an added texture effect we took a comb and went over some of the lines.

Here is the end result. The kids in my son's kindergarten class really enjoyed this project!

Mr. Panda Crochet Pattern

This is the first pattern I am putting out there for people to use! Hopefully it is well written and it turns out for you, like it did for me. Feel free to add comments or questions. If you see a mistake please let me know!

It is pretty basic amigurumi style animal. The parts are all separate and you have to sew them together at the end.

1 skein white worsted weight yarn

1/2 skein black worsted weight yarn

F (3.75mm)hook, yarn needle, poly-fil stuffing, 2 safety eyes, 1 safety nose-you could also use buttons, or felt shapes and embroider those on if you are planning to give this to a baby or young child.

Head
sc 5 into magic ring
mark first stitch to indicate beginning round
2 sc in each stitch around (10)
(sc 1, 2sc into next stitch)around (15)
(sc 2, 2sc into next stitch) around (20)
(sc 3, 2sc into next stitch) around (25)
(sc 4, 2 sc into next stitch) around (30)
(sc 5, 2 sc into next stitch) around (35)
sc around
(sc 6, 2 sc into next stitch) around (40)
sc around 6 rounds
(sc 6, sc2tog) around (35)
sc around
(sc 5, sc2tog) around (30)
(sc 4, sc2tog) around (25)
(sc 3, sc2tog) around (20)
(sc 2, sc2tog) around (15)
(sc, sc2tog) around (10)
(sc2 tog) around (5)
fasten off. leave long tail for sewing head to body.

Body
sc 5 into magic ring
2 sc in each stitch around (10)
place marker to mark 1st stitch
(sc 1, 2sc into next stitch)around (15)
(sc 2, 2sc into next stitch) around (20)
(sc 3, 2sc into next stitch) around (25)
(sc 4, 2 sc into next stitch) around (30)
(sc 5, 2 sc into next stitch) around (35)
(sc 6, 2 sc into next stitch) around (40)
next 2 rounds~ sc around (40)
(sc 7, 2 sc into next stitch) around (45)
next 6 ROUNDS sc around
(sc 7, sc2tog) around (40)
next 2 rounds sc around
(sc 6, sc2tog) around (35)
(sc 5, sc2tog) around (30)
(sc 4, sc2tog) around (25)
(sc 3, sc2tog) around (20)
(sc 2, sc2tog) around (15)
(sc, sc2tog) around (10)
(sc2 tog) around (5)

Arms
with black-
sc 4 into magic ring
(sc1, 2 sc into next stitch) until you have 12 stitches
place marker to begin round
next 4 rounds sc around
(sc2, 2sc into the next stitch) around 16
sc around 12 rounds
fashion off using slip stitch. leave tail for attaching to body and sewing shut.
Stuff half full.
sew shut before attaching to body

Legs (make 2)
with black
5 sc into magic ring
2sc into each stitch around (10)
(1sc, 2sc into next stitch) around (15)
(2sc, 2sc into next stitch) around (20)
next 5 rounds sc around
(2sc, 2 sc tog) around (15)
sc around next 9 rounds
fashion off leaving a tail

Eyes (make 2)
with white-4 sc into magic ring
with black- 2sc in each stitch around (8)
(1sc, 2sc into next stitch)around (12)
(2 sc, 2sc into next stitch) around (16)
fashion off, leave tail to sew onto head
add safety eye to center of the circle
make sure it is securely attached

Ears, make 2
4 sc into magic circle
(2 sc in next stitch)around(8)
(2 sc in next stitch) around (16)
(2 sc in next stitch) around (32)
sc around
fashion off, leave long tail for sewing.
fold circle in half and using yarn needle sew together around around circle
sew straight edge to head over eyes

mouth/nose
with white
sc 4 into magic ring
2 sc in each stitch around (8)
(1 sc, 2 sc in next stitch)around (12)
(2sc, 2sc in next stitch) around (16)
(3sc, 2sc in next stitch) around (20)
attach safety nose or embroider it and mouth
stuff lightly if you want to
sew mouth to face

tail
sc 4 into magic ring
2sc in each stitch (8)
(1sc, 2sc in next stitch)around (12)
sc around next 2 rounds
fashion off, leave tail
sew to body