City Mouse Big Cheese

We has a little tug of war this year with costumes. T was set out from the get go to be a ghost but Mommy had other plans. I had 1/2 started this mouse costume a while back and had planned to give it as a birthday present but never got it completed. The week before and the week of Halloween I was not feeling well (just found out I have bronchitis) and so I decided to revisit this little mouse and use stuff I had around the house to put together something simple for Theo. I whipped this up in two hazy congested miserable nights, but it was so worth it.

The mouse costume consisted of a tail and ears made from stretch velour and a grey tulle tutu. Theo's cheese head was a piece of latex foam that I cut with scissors and sprayed with yellow spray paint. We used an on hand onsie that I dyed and printed out an iron on decal that said aged one year (yes he just turned one the week before). We got to use the costume several times once for a party and then again at Halloween and my guess is that she will want to wear this a dozen or so times before we re purpose the parts for something else. Halloween was so magical this year. T had such a great time, we created a bunch of creepy crafts and she became completely obsessed with all things slightly spooky. Theo, well he wasn't so sure about it all and even though he looks miserable in the photo he warmed up to his costume and was our perfect stinky lil cheese. Oh and I went as a black cat...with a few grey whiskers.

Rogue Pirate

Here's the next installment of the summer of costumes. Just now posting this project from two weeks back.Tomorrow is castles, prince & princess day and I've yet to start sewing or have any clue of what I will throw together. I think I am procrastinating on this one because I have always sworn to try and steer T away from the whole "princess" thing and encourage her to indulge in more "girl" esteem rewarding role play. But I am finding that this issue is alot like me trying to steer her away from junk food, sugar and bad nutritional influences I can't help to to feel like... the girl needs an occasional brownie and just maybe an occasional princess.

All princess talk aside, here is T as my rogue...not so rogue pirate. She really loved this one and has worn it several times since I made it. We have a hand me down ship play set in the backyard which is perfect for her to act our her pirate daydreams. I even managed to drag Dad into this one - I had him stencil the skull and cross bones on to the vest. So pleased that this was my first attempt at a pair of pants, simple yes they were but I felt a huge sense of accomplishment at tackling something that I had a bit of new sewist fear of. No patterns just used a old pair of pants and an old vest as a go by. Again, not a lot of finishing on this costume. The pant bottoms and felt on the jacket left rough making for a quick 2.5 hour total project. I had all the material except the red striped fabric for the hat on hand so it was almost entirely made up of scraps.

Still missing some pirate accompaniments, I still need to make up a treasure map,some kind of soft sword for swashbuckling(very important according to T)and decorate a paper towel tube for locating other pirate ships in the distance.

Materials:
1.5 yards cotton for pants
1 yard of felt for vest
black bias tape
black felt & elastic for eye patch