Saturday, October 2, 2010

Halloween Costumes

My children, like all children, are fickle when it comes to Halloween costumes.  We have an adorable Madeline costume that Tootsie Roll wore when she was little (well, littler than she is now, lol) that fits Curly Jones perfectly.  She loves to dress up in it (and dress her rocking horse in it) but she doesn't want to use it for Halloween.
So when she decided that she wanted to be "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse", I foolishly bought her a Minnie Mouse costume... that she enjoys dressing up in, but does not want to use for Halloween.
Now, I'm a nice mom and all, but I do draw the line at buying one costume per child per Halloween.  So she can choose one of these, or one of her ballet outfits from dance class, or one of the umpteen million costumes in the two giant dressup bins in our playroom.  Suffer. :)

Tootsie Roll is another story.  She has always wanted to be something unusual for Halloween.  When every one of her preschool friends was being a Disney princess, she would pick Madeline or "a pumpkin witch".  Last year, she had about a million places to dress up for Halloween.  She had her parade at school, a party next door, a masquerade ball at my school, and also got to dress up during Halloween week at both of her dance classes.  All that and we didn't even have to buy a costume... she wore the Snow White one we had bought for our trip to Disney last summer and made costumes out of stuff we had for all of the other events:

 For school and here with her dance teacher (who we didn't know would also be Snow White lol)
 For dance class #2 and our neighbor's party - her Easter dress and my wedding veil
By Halloween night she was bored of her other costumes and came up with the chef outfit on the fly.  We had a kiddie cooking hat and apron, so she decided to splash it with spaghetti sauce and draw on a moustache.  Curly Jones was a ladybug. :)

This year, my voracious little reader is currently on Book 11 of The Series of Unfortunate Events and wants to be Violet Baudelaire for Halloween.  Now, I can't say I blame the kid.  She's a pretty cool character and I wish I could dress like her every single day:




The costume designer on the movie was Colleen Atwood, who also designed the costumes for Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland movie.  I can't say I was a huge fan of the movie itself (I am an Alicephile, I was disappointed) but her wardrobe alone was worth watching:




So here we are, trying to figure out how to create Violet when I can't sew.  Any ideas?

8 comments:

Elizabeth Briggs said...

Ooh cool idea for a costume! How about getting a gothy witch costume? Like this one: http://www.spirithalloween.com/product/spider-black-witch-child-costume/

Then you just need to add boots, Victorian-looking jewelry, and some fishnet gloves.

Unknown said...

Ooh, Elizabeth, great idea! That particular one is sold out but I googled "black witch costume child" and found this!

http://www.costumesupercenter.com/girls+costumes-witch/F58423-classic-witch-child-costume.html

I am not good with sewing, but I might be able to work with it!

Misha Gerrick said...

Hey,

Can't really make a suggestion, but just wanted to say thanks for the follow.

Good luck for finding the perfect costume!

:-)

Old Kitty said...

How to create Violet Baudelaire without sewing?!?! Erm... lots of black fabric and lace all tied together with a big black ribbon at the waist! LOL!!!

Good luck!! Awwww now I wish I had some children to dress up - your Curly Jones and Tootsie Roll are just soooooooooooooo adorable!!
Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!

Take care
x

storyqueen said...

I'd second the accessories! I mean, you might be able to go to Target and find a black skirt or black dress that would work, but what you NEED are the stockings (maybe striped or textured), the victorian booties, gloves and jewelry.

And the hair. I loved Violet's hair in the movie.

Good luck!

Shelley

Jemi Fraser said...

I was so relieved when my kids got too old for Halloween and costumes. I'm awful at costumes!! :) Good luck!

vic caswell said...

first of all- again your daughters top the cute spectrum (my goodness tootsie roll was the perfect snow white!- and she' s going to make an awesome violet!)
you might search ebay- maybe some mom has already sewed one up. that said i too was super impressed by the costumes in both the alice and lemony movies!
those movies were just so purty! i didn't even pay attention to plot. i just was in awe of the purty. :)

Hannah said...

I don't sew either. Good luck!! But let me say, if you can pull that off, it will be awesome.