Halloween Costumes

I nanny the most adorable twins! And I used to nanny their older brother, until he decided to grow up and go to school. It's very uncool! And each halloween, I make their costumes! Last years costumes were pretty darn cute and I was nervous to top them this year.

Last year Coryn was an owl! Find the tutorial here. Cayle was Carl from Up! This is one I based it off of and the girl was so sweet, she said that if she hadn't of already lent it to a friend she would have sent me the walker she made. Cully was Doctor Who! This one was all me, I couldn't really find a tutorial. He was a mix of 10 and 11. I made the Tardis myself without any tutorial because no one had made one! It was super easy but lots of tedious work. I did use a picture to base it off of, the one I made is on the bottom.

This year I asked Cully for input one day on the way to his house. I asked him what he wanted to be, "Doctor Who, du-uh!" I was proud! Then I asked him what he thought his babies should be "Pooh Bear and Piglet sound good." And the wheels in my head started spinning out of control! Later, we convinced Cully to be Tigger. The kid had just given me gold! Now I'm not the best seamstress when it comes to clothes so I like to stay far away. Last years costumes required no sewing! Hot glue and buying but no sewing. This year I had to break down and sew a couple times. I like sewing though, just not clothes-there's too much pressure.

We'll talk about buckets at the end.

When I start costumes I like to look in their closets and see what we can take from there. We used a long sleeve pink shirt of hers and some pink shorts. We got the smallest youth size pink shirt and then had to tailor it, and it was still a little big in the sleeves so we just tied ribbons to it make it look better. I drew lines, that I wish would have been a little darker or wider in hindsight, using fabric paint and used a ruler to make them equal distance. We go pink tights, which she can wear again! And the cutest little pink shoes from Hobby Lobby (used my 40% off coupon on them too!)

Finding a plain yellow shirt for Cayle proved impossible. We didn't want anything printed on it in case it peeked through on the bottom. And finding yellow pants never happened. So we got some white girl tights, and a white shirt and died them using Tulip dye, I think the color was Sunshine. Then  I took the same size shirt that we got Coryn, different color of course, and cut off the bottom. I then used this font to print the iconic Pooh and then DIY screen print it. And I was so happy the yellows matched!

Can we just take a second to look at that adorable foot?

Cully's costume gave me the most headaches! I didn't find white pants until almost the 11th hour! And I was so grateful because I had no idea what I was going to do. We used Cintas white pants. I also had a white shirt for him. I dyed them together and the shirts took the color a lot better than the pants, in fact the pants were barely tinted while the shirt looked great! I used Tulip brand for the first dying and then they were out of the orange so I had to use Rit brand for the second dye. I didn't take a picture of what they looked like the first time but the shirt after the first dye was pretty close to what the pants looked like after the second dye and I wished I wouldn't have put the shirt in for the second dye but I was nervous. Then I used black fabric actual paint, not the one in a tube that you draw with, to paint on the stripes. FYI that kind has sparkles in it, not a lot-but enough that you might want to hurt someone if you find out at midnight two days before this has to be ready. I used some yellow fabric I found in the remnants section at Hobby Lobby to make the stomach. I just traced a serving dish so that I could get a good oval. I wish I would have made it a little smaller but it looks great! I doubled up on the yellow so it would show a true yellow and not an orange yellow.
Then there was the whole ordeal about the Tigger tail. So I was not smart and decided to wait til the last night to make it. And then the sewing machine broke! So I had to go to church super early and use the church sewing machines to sew the tail and then it was too big and Cully only wore it for just a few minutes.

As for the buckets-

We used the ugly $1 buckets from Walmart and covered them. I used grosgrain ribbon in a matching color to cover the handle.
For coryn's we used full price purple fleece and used fabric paint to draw lines on them, and then cut them into strips. Then wrapped and glued them. I used three strips, and I want to say they were like 2.5 in wide.
Cayle's I used two different remnant fabrics. Why do I love remnant fabrics? They're deeply discounted leftovers! I used a light brown for the bottom and a green and white polka dot on top. The easiest way to make it is to just make a circle and slip it over. It'll be tight and the very bottom will pucker a little bit but as you can see-you couldn't even tell and it was super cute!
Cully I used black remnant and full price orange, the same stuff I used for his tail. I did it the same way I did Cayle's and then painted stripes on it.

If you have any questions, just let me know!

* Update - The reason they're wearing Mickey Mouse hats is because they did Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween and we had them wear those hats instead of making them hats because trying to find child-size basebeall caps for less than an arm is ridiculous!