Boo!

When I was a kid, I was the same thing every Halloween, a witch.  Every single stinking year, I wore the same old green rubber mask with the fake curly hair.  However, I tossed my mother's old pink ruffly piano recital dress which she wore when she was 12 over it for good effect and donned her tiara she had won for being queen of some festival--bonus, portions of the tiara were held on by scotch tape (I guess being queen was rough).  Yes, I was a witch, but a stylish one!  Even back then I had my priorities right--fashion at all costs!

The Gruesome Twosome would never be happy to throw on a stinky mask year after year.  In June they start scouring Costume Express with the same kind of zeal usually demonstrated by their mother in the lipstick section of Sephora.  They have ambitions of epic proportions.  Problem is, the costumes come with grandiose price tags and flimsy materials.  Gone With The Wind burning of Atlanta scene goals paired with a burning of a match in the backyard kind of budget.  In other words, I'm not spending $40 for a costume.  Well, not for a costume that isn't going to be worn at a dance recital.  Wait--dance recital costumes?  Brilliant!!!  We have a ton of them AND they're already paid for!!!

Pey was going to wear her elephant costume from May recital. Perfect!  No alterations needed.

She's posing like her nose is the trunk, not wiping her nose on her sleeve.  Promise.

Lulu had seen a pic of the Queen of Hearts and decided she wanted to do that.  The problem was that I had a LOT of work to do.  Here's what we had to start with.

Yeah, a blank slate.  This had been a Christian lyrical costume.  Snow queen, maybe.  Queen of Hearts, no way.  So we went to Hobby Lobby and stocked up.

Lots of tulle, ribbon, scrapbooking paper, a Christmas decoration (which was 40% off--score!) and a black tshirt.  Lots of sewing (with the sewing maching at that!), lots of fabric glue and lots of ugly words when the elastic wasn't co-operating, and a mere 2 days later and we have this:

Front

Back, without the collar.

Yes, I watch a ton of Mad Fashion and completely borrowed Chris March's collar idea for Jennifer Coolidge.  The collar made with the Christmas decoration & accordion folded paper was my favorite part of the whole costume.  It made Lulu easy to spot with the balls bouncing all over the place.  Poor kid couldn't turn her head from side to side, but it looked impressive.  In retrospect, I should have incorporated flashlights into it, to be closer to Chris' original, but then I'd have to buy a neck brace for her to wear today from the aching caused by wearing 10 pounds artificial illumination.

Here they are together:

 

Turns out that as long as the Sound & Fury are busy getting candy, they actually get along!  We trick or treated for over an hour--no fights!  Even better, both costumes held up the whole time.  Maybe my sewing skills aren't so bad after all--HAHAHA!  Sounds like I'm "April Fooling" it at Halloween :)

Now for the fun part--raiding their candy stash while they are at school.  Bwahahahaha!