How I made my Halloween Costumes part 4

Last one of the bunch!

Paul as Batman:

Supplies:
-Grey long underwear (shirt) - $8 (Walmart)
-Grey long underwear (pants) - $8 (Walmart)
-Black felt (Dollar Store) - $1
-Dracula cape (Dollar Store) - $2
-Black Balaclava (Dollar Store) - $1
-Black rubber gloves (Dollar Store) - $1
-Black foam (Dollar Store) $1
-Yellow felt (same as Batgirl)
-Yellow foam (same as Batgirl)
-Black legwarmers (Dollar Store) $1
-Black shorts (on hand)




I luckily had an action-figure model for this one, so I based my costume on him!

Grey long underwear made this costume so much easier, it's the perfect thing for a superhero costume.
For the "underpants", Paul just took a pair of black shorts he had and rolled them up on the inside so they were much shorter.

For the bat-symbol, I cut and sewed felt onto the shirt.

The belt was just a circle of yellow felt (done up with a safety pin...classy, I know), with a bunch of folded-over yellow foam hotglued onto it. I drew buttons on with a gold marker. In the middle is a yellow bat-symbol, also out of foam.

The gloves were tricky. At first I made separate gauntlets out of black foam, but they just would not stay done up or on properly, so I just ended up adding the foam fins directly onto the rubber gloves with hot-glue.

Original Gloves: Did not work.

Second try: Much easier

The cowl didn't have the eye-holes, so I sewed the area, then cut them out (to prevent the knit from coming out). I had to do some creative alterations to get them to match where Paul's eyes are, which was the most frustrating part of this whole project. I added an extra nose-piece by cutting a triangle out of felt and sewing it between the eye-holes. I did the ears in the same way as Batgirl, just sewing felt to the sides of the balaclava.

The cape was quite easy, I cut the red collar off of a black vinyl dracula cape and then cut the bottom to look like Batman's cape. I just used safety pins to attach it to the cowl.

The boots are just black legwarmers, worn with black dress shoes. My dollar store is in love with leg warmers, so they were easy to find!
 

That's it! Those are my four Superhero costumes. I really enjoyed making them. I hope that I can continue to have the time make Halloween costumes while my kids are little.

How I made my Halloween Costumes part 3

 Part 3 of my Halloween Costumes!

 M as Wonder Woman

Supplies:
-Blue Silk Pillowcase (Thrift Store) $1
-Red Shirt (Thrift Store)$2
-Yellow foam (same as Batgirl)
-Yellow Duct Tape (Dollar Store) $3
-White felt (Dollar Store) $1
-Red Tube Socks (other pair from Supergirl)
-Elastic, thread, etc (Walmart) $5



For M's Wonder Woman costume, the best thing I ever found was a blue silk pillowcase. I literally cheered when I saw it. 99c for the perfect colour and amount of fabric.
I made shorts for the very first time following this pattern, using the blue pillowcase.
I then cut out and glued white felt stars to the fabric. 

Her shirt was just a red shirt I found at the thrift store.
I cut the wonder woman symbol out of foam using a black marker for the accents and hot-glued it to the shirt

Please ignore the bite marks, that's what a toddler does to foam.

Her tiara is yellow foam with a red duct tape star.

The belt is yellow felt sewn directly onto the shirt.

For her "boots" I cut the top part off of the second pair of red tube socks and glued a strip of white felt to the front.

And lastly for the lasso of truth, I twisted yellow duct tape into a rope and attached it to the side of her belt.

Next up: Batman! 

How I made my Halloween Costumes Part 2

Continuing the tutorials on how I made our Halloween costumes is...

G as Batgirl!

Supplies:

-Black shirt (on hand)
-Black leggings (Thrift Store) $1
-Yellow felt (same as for Supergirl)
-2' Yellow craft foam sheet (Dollar Store) $2
-Black toque (Thrift Store) $1
-Black felt (Dollar Store) $1
-Black face paint (Dollar Store) $1
-Yellow rubber boots (on hand)


For G's Batgirl costume, I took a black shirt she already owned and sewed them together with a pair of black leggings. It was just much easier to have them all as one piece then have the shirt always riding up.
 I cut a bat-symbol out of yellow foam and hot-glued it to the shirt.

The belt was just a loop of felt, with another (more squarish) bat-symbol sewn on top.

The cape is a big sheet of yellow felt (no sewing!) cut in the bat wing shape along the bottom. I hot-glued some felt as a string.

The cowl is a black toque with two ear shapes sewn on.

 I fancied the idea of making a mask out of felt that could come up and down, but G hates masks, so we just went with face paint.

Her rubber boots just happen to be yellow, so that worked out very well - however, had I not had those, I would have used this pattern to make duct tape boots.

Tomorrow: Wonder Woman!

How I made my Halloween Costumes Part 1

I made 4 Halloween Costumes this year and had so much fun doing it! I got my supplies mostly from the dollar store and the thrift store (Dollarama and Value Village to be exact), with a couple things from Walmart as well. The total amount I spent was less then $60, which is much, much less then it would have been if I'd bought the store-bought version of these outfits.

We were all Superheroes, Paul was Batman, I was Supergirl, G was Batgirl and M was Wonder Woman.

I thought I'd do a little run-down of each costume and how I made them. I'm going to divide this into four different blog posts so it doesn't get too long. I'll be posting them between now and Halloween.

First, Me as Supergirl.

Supplies

-Blue Shirt (Thrift Store) $5
-Blue leggings (Dollar Store) $2
-Red Flannel Sheet (Thrift Store) $3
-Yellow tube top (Dollar Store) $1
-Yellow felt (Walmart) - $4
-Red Tube Socks (Dollar Store) 2/$1
-Red Duct Tape (Dollar Store) $3
-Superman cape (on hand from kids costume trunk)

My original plan was to just wear Paul's shirt, but the fit wasn't right or buy a Superman shirt, but I couldn't find one in the right size online. However, I found a perfect colour of shirt at the thrift store, so I just bought that and made my own Supergirl-S.
The S:

 The yellow is yellow felt, and the red is duct tape. I made a sheet of duct tape back-to-back so it wasn't sticky, then traced an S on it and cut it out with an exacto-knife. The two pieces are hot-glued together, then hand-sewn to the shirt.

 The Skirt:

The red sheet was quite an awesome find, it made the whole thing easier. I  just cut a circle skirt out of the sheet and sewed it onto a stretchy yellow tube top I found at the dollar store.

I can't imagine anyone actually wearing this as a tube top, but it works really well as a belt on me! Since the sheet was flannel, I didn't even have to hem it.

The rest was just accessories. I found some blue leggings (technically, Supergirl doesn't wear leggings, but I'm too modest to wear such a short skirt by itself) red tube socks (pack of two! I used the other pair in the Wonder Woman costume), and a Superman cape that we happened to have in the kids costume trunk (though I would have probably had enough red sheet fabric to make a cape as well.

There you have it! Up next: Batgirl

Romanticism

The show G has been watching lately is called Batman: The Brave and the Bold. I highly recommend it to anyone whose kid is into superheroes, it is aimed at a relatively young audience but has moments of adult hilarity (especially anything Aquaman says).
Yesterday, she was watching an episode that was primarily singing - it involves a villain who forces everyone to sing - and she absolutely loved it, but that is all beside the point.
The point is that she proved herself to be exactly mine and Paul's daughter. The final song in the show is sung by a character called Black Canary.


Her reaction to the music and the situation was purely beautiful. She had been sitting normally throughout the show, then when the song turned from a sad lament into a love song (Green Arrow is in love with Black Canary), she flipped out, both figuratively and literally.


 She maneuvered from sitting into flipped upside-down, kicking her feet in the air and giggling like mad. She was excited by the crescendo in the music and by the love story unfolding.
In this moment, she was purely my daughter. This is exactly the reaction I have when romantic things happen. I get excited and sometimes I can't help but show it physically.
 And in this moment she was purely Paul's daughter, reacting to an emotional musical piece with such passion.
Our daughter, through and through, a born romantic.