A frog, a lilypad, and a rose garden.

How the costumes were decided on:

Emma saw the idea for hers on Martha Stewart's website. She had been asking to be a rose for a while, but until we saw the rose garden idea, I had no idea what I was going to do.

For her costume, I hot glued silk flowers to her leotard, another flower was hot glued to a piece of stretchy knit fabric which I then turned into a headband, and finally using a piece of satin quilt binding, I made the rose petal skirt. Hers has a tie in the back. The leaves and petals are crepe like fabrics, cut and sewn, and turned. Then I just stacked them until I liked the layout.

Sophie asked to be a frog. All frog costumes that I could find are terribly masculine and bulky. Niether of those words describe Sophie, so I wanted to find something different. Once the idea for Emma's costume came to shape, I got the idea of making Sophie a frog sitting on a lilypad. I knit her hat with frog face. Then, I made her skirt in the same fashion as Emma's, except hers has a button at the back. I love how the skirts turned out. I wish I had a better green yarn for her hat. My hot glue gun is broken now. But, these girls looked great on Halloween. Best part - the skirts will fit them for a while, Sophie likes her hat and loves Emma's headband. The lesson learned - putting hot glue along the neckline of a stretchy garment eliminates the stretch, making it very difficult to get on!

Ribbet!

I'm Back!!!

I hope...

To get things started in the direction I had long ago intended, here is a photo of my baby wearing her Halloween costume - made by momma. The Elf hat and jacket are from the wonderful Angry Chicken book (serious momma brain happening here, and you wonder why it took me so long to come back to this little blog) - it's called "Bend the Rules Sewing" (phew!)- oh, you know the one. I tied strips of tulle around a long strip of grosgrain ribbon until it would wrap around my daughter's teeny little waist and used the rest of the ribbon length to tie it at her back. It worked well. Add a pair of brown pants and some brown Robeez booties and you have a little woodland elf. My lack of experience in this "homemade costume" arena meant that big sister Emma got a store-bought costume again this year. Oh, but I do have big plans for next year.

Suess-like discoveries

I had to mention this...otherwise I might just forget. Now that I am a momma, I really do forget a lot. I forget my sunglasses, my cell phone or other little things. But I always check the rearview mirror to make sure I didn't forget a child. I love my girls, but they make me forget.
So, before I forget...I was monkeying around on other "truly crafty" ladies' blogs and found someone (and I forget who, I hope she forgives me) who found an old knitting pattern for a "thneed". That's right...sometime after "The Lorax" someone thought it was a good idea to create a pattern and then make a thneed!!! I wish I had a copy of that pattern. I am pretty sure I would be very tempted to make my own set of thneeds and dress the family up for Halloween as a bunch of thneeds (maybe even the dog). We don't actually do that (get dressed up for Halloween) but as the girls grow I really wish someone would have a really great Halloween party so that we could all, just once dress up together in some really fun themed costumes. My current pick would be something silly like Andy is a butterfly guy (what are they called?) and my girls and I are caterpillars and butterflies (poor Charley, there is no winner for her in this one). Anyhow, probably not likely...but maybe I can make it happen someday.
That's all for now. I will try to find the "thneed" blog and credit her properly as she so deserves to be...

(PS - I found the blog - here is a link to her post about the fabulous thneed!...http://thecraftyworld.com/?p=18 )