A very Harry Potter Halloween

First and foremost, my apologies for the crappy photos.  I forgot to charge my good camera before Halloween and so, the battery was dead. *head desk*  Bad Dobby!  Bad Dobby!  So all the photos were taken on my phone.  I'm sorry about the quality (or lack thereof).

A very Harry Halloween (complete with Mischief-Managed in the corner)

We had ourselves a very Harry Halloween.  It all started with my oldest.  She couldn't decide if she wanted to be Harry or Hermione, so she decided to coordinate with her baby sister and posed the question to her.  Go as Harry and Dobby or Hermione and Crookshanks?  The youngest picked Crookshanks.

Inspiration 

Oldest daughter

Not bad, eh?  She has a red and yellow tie (which she got at a rummage sale a year or two ago specifically to use for Hermione) over her brother's dress shirt (which really is too small for her, but luckily, you couldn't see it).  I got that sweater for $1 on clearance last year at Volde-Mart.  It, too, belongs to her brother, but it's 3 sizes too big for him, so it works great for the sister who's 4 years older.  I got the skirt for less than a dime at a consignment store.  She had the tights and socks and she wore existing dress shoes (not pictured here).

She wore robes that we got ages ago on clearance.  They're perfect because they're black, lined in red fabric, and there's a hood.  The only problem is that the huge skull closure makes them look more like Death Eater robes (and when she put the hood on, her baby sister asked, "Hey, Death Eater, where did Hermione go?").  No problem, though, because Hermione needed a S.P.E.W. badge, so I made a huge one and used double stick tape to tape it over the skull.  

She already has brown curly hair, but in order to amp up the bushiness, she slept with her hair in 6 braids.  It worked.  She had perfect bushy Hermione hair.  

Hermione's bushy brown hair

Total cost for the whole Hermione costume: under ten cents.  

Crookshanks wasn't quite as easy to throw together.

Hermione and Crookshanks 

Our Crookshanks

Note the tail.

For this ginger cat, I wanted an orange top with a hood and orange pants.  Problem is, it's damn-near impossible to find solid orange clothes, even this time of year.  So, I hit the thrift stores.  I found this orange sweater for $3 at Value Village.  I found the pants (size 6-9 months, which is why they're so short.  My daughter is 2 and 1/2 and isn't tiny) for a quarter.  My big girls had an orange boa, so I cut a strip of that for the fuzzy chest (to cover the zipper) and used a piece of it for Crookshanks' bent tail.  I used orange felt I had on hand to make the ears (and pinned them on so that we can easily remove them and still use the sweater).  She had orange socks.  We grabbed a few makeup kits last Halloween for a few cents when they went on huge clearance, so I used those for her face.

Total cost: $3.25.

Harry

When I found the Nimbus 2000 replica at Value Village, brand new and on sale for 99 cents, I had to get it.  Actually, I got 2.  When the guy at the register rang it up, he congratulated me and pointed out that they usually sell for $20 each.

That broom is what convinced my son he wanted to be Harry for Halloween.  He was torn between Harry and a Storm Trooper before that point.  Luckily, this is not his first time taking on the Chosen One's identity, so he already had much of what he needed.  He wore his white dress shirt with his red tie (I used the official Gryffindor tie as a model and painted gold stripes using fabric paint).  I cut an old grey sweater vest to make more of a V-neck, but it looked awful.  So, when I found a grey tank top at a consignment store for a few cents, I grabbed it for him.  He wore his existing grey pants and dress shoes (with red socks because he is a Gryffindor after all).  Once again, we headed to Value Village where I found the robes on sale for half off.  So they cost me 98 cents.

Years ago, we stocked up on these glasses for goody bags.  They have big freaky eyes attached.  We still have a few pairs left, so I pried the eyes out of them (much to my youngest's dismay.  She cried actual big tears and screamed at me, 'You ruined my Mad-Eye glasses.") and my son used them for Harry.  Yes, I realize they're purple.  Yes, I'm typically a stickler for details, but, by that point, I didn't much care.

His oldest sister used the same makeup sticks Crookshanks used to draw a scar on his forehead.  For those who are new, we're Jewish and my son wears a kippah (yarmulka).  So he donned his Harry Potter kippah yesterday.  It's his favorite.  FTR, his father clipped it, not me.  If I had done it, there wouldn't be a kippah clip straight through poor Harry's face.

Total cost: about $1.




Next up, we Luna Lovegood.  This was the most expensive of the costumes.  If you've been hanging around for a while, you know my kids adore Luna.  My middle daughter was going to be Darth Vader, that is, until we found the blonde wig (again, at Value Village.  They really should pay me for the advertising).  It was new and $6, but I had a 25% off coupon.  The promise of a long blonde wig was just too good to ignore.  She swapped costume ideas that minute.

Long blonde curls 2009

The funny thing is that my daughter IS blonde, although she chopped her hair off a few years ago.  Before that, she actually had perfect Luna hair.  So there I was buying a wig that wasn't nearly as close to Luna's hair as the child's natural hair was.

So we had a wig, but it needed something more to make her unmistakably Luna.  My mind immediately went to Luna's famous lion hat.  We opted to go with the movie representation rather than the books just because it seemed like it would be more obvious (in the books, it was more of a stuffed lion on top of her regular school hat).  I scoured Pinterest for ideas and headed back to Value Village (seriously, I need to start charging for ad space).  There, I found the jacket from this Old Navy costume for $2.  It was 12-18 months, but I had her try on the hood in the store and it worked.  Poor kid actually tried on every single hood and hat that was even remotely lion-shaped.  That one worked the best.  I took it home and cut the hood off.

Not the best shot, but all I was able to get

When I got my son that $1 grey sweater last year, I also grabbed a black one in the same size for the same price.  So we opted to scrap the standard grey and go with black using this photo as inspiration.  Unfortunately, the only cork we have in the house is firmly pressed into a bottle of wine for the time being, so we couldn't replicate the cork necklace (although both my daughter and I pictured it as a necklace of bottle caps when we read the description in the 5th book).  The hat and wig covered her ears, so we skipped Luna's signature earrings.  We did, however, print Spectraspecs (just without lenses because I didn't have anything on hand that would work).  I also printed a Ravenclaw patch which she wore on her sweater (held on with double stick tape).  She borrowed her brother's dress shirt and blue tie (it killed me that it was blue and silver, like the movie, instead of blue and gold. I'm a Ravenclaw and I'm a stickler for the book representation.  FWIW, her patch was cannon and had an eagle, not a raven).  She wore rainbow knee highs over her black tights and she wore sparkly pink sneakers.  It just seemed like a very Luna thing to wear.  She also spent a lot of time staring into space.

It wasn't, by far, the best representation of Luna, but it worked.

Total cost: $6.50

While trick-or-treating, we heard quite a few people exclaim that we were the only Harry Potter characters they'd seen.  We thought that was odd.  With the last movie coming out this year, we were sure Harry would still be popular.  Two people caught that the youngest was Crookshanks.  One of those declared us their favorite costumes of the whole night.  I wanted to kiss those people.

See the pink tea cup in my right hand?

For the first time since I was in college, I dressed up too.  I was Trelawney (which is another post for another day).  I even managed to convince my husband to dress up, well, kinda.  I found inspiration here and printed him a name tag. 

Dr. Wendell Wilkins

We're Off To See The Wizard

I just stumbled across some older Halloween photos and I figured I'd blog about them before life got in the way (as it has a habit of doing). In 2007, my girls decided they wanted to be Dorothy and Glenda from the Wizard of Oz. My oldest was inspired by a dress her grandmother gave her which looked remarkably like Dorothy's.

Since that was taken care of, all she needed was sparkly shoes. In the books, the shoes are actually silver.  Should we make ours red or silver?  I debated this for a while and eventually decided to take the movie route and made them ruby slippers. Red just looks better. I checked out the sparkly red shoes at the stores, but they were too expensive. The girls had a pair of worn dress shoes I bought for 50 cents. They were falling apart, so I just used some glue and sprinkled on some red glitter. They looked fantastic.

 I made Toto using the adorable Scotty Dog tutorial at AllSorts. I actually used scraps of the black fabric left over from the suit my husband wore when we got married.  No particular reason for that.  It's just what I had in my bag of scraps.  The kids still play with that stuffed dog.

Glenda was super simple.  I let her pick her favorite fancy dress.  Then we made a crown out of cereal boxes, construction paper, foam stickers and glitter.  She grabbed a wand from the dress-up box and I added some ribbon.

Now their little brother was supposed to be Jack Skellington.  I bought the costume for him the year before, but it was too cold that year (which was unusual), so he wore it under his lion jacket and no one ever got to see it.  Besides, his daddy is the one who's the Nightmare Before Xmas fan and he was deployed during our son's first Halloween anyway.  So I planned to reuse the costume when my husband was around to enjoy it.  Unfortunately, in our usual fashion, we procrastinated on bringing the box down from the attic (and by, "We," I mean, "My husband," since I'm barely taller than a garden gnome and couldn't reach the attic door).  So on Halloween morning, I found the Jack costume was too small.  D'oh!*

Your mom dresses you like a dork.

After some quick thinking, I threw together a munchkin costume.  More specifically, he was a member of the Lollipop Guild (because I feared a regular old munchkin wouldn't be recognizable).  I used his dress shirt and a pair of shorts (we lived in the South at the time, so it was warm enough to go out in shorts).  I grabbed a torn pair of my daughters' tights (which I always kept "just in case," and which I always told myself I should just throw away).  I painted on red stripes (you can't see the tear because they're under the shorts) and topped them off with his brown soft-sole shoes.

His hair was really what made the costume.  I split it into three and added some gel.  His hair is naturally curly, so it was easy to shape into three curls.  Now, pardon me a minute while I stare at that photo and sob for the red-head that once was.  At nearly 6 now, my son's no longer a ginger, much to my dismay.  ::sob::

I scoured the house for something to use to create a lollipop.  The red round lid for the raisins looked the best, so I let the kids finish off the entire container of raisins that Halloween (4 years later, they STILL remember that part fondly).  I used white paint marker on it,  glued that to a craft stick, and added some ribbon.  Viola, instant adorable munchkin.  I think it took me 1/2 an hour to create the whole costume.

While trick-or-treating that night, only ONE person realized that their costumes coordinated (and I wanted to kiss that one woman when she recognized it).  :::sigh:::  I guess that was better than the year my twins went as "Monkey See" and "Monkey Do" (complete with the word "Do" and the letter C pinned to their monkey costumes) and someone asked, "Why do those mice have letters on them?")

*You would think I learned my lesson, but NOOOOO.  The following year, I would, once again, find ON HALLOWEEN that the costume I planned to use for my son was too small and I would, once again, find myself throwing together a last minute costume for the poor kid.  That', however, is another story for another day (or more precisely, another costume for another blog post).  

Why my shower looks like a murder scene and why I'm not happy (even if I do have cute hair).

I was awake at ungdly hours  fortunate enough to get my hands on one of Clairol's coupons for a free trial of their new Nice 'n Easy Color Blend Foam.  The coupon came in the mail last week, so I headed to the store to pick it up.  It was tricky to find, but I eventually found it on the end cap, near the dyes, but not with them.  I opted for a darker brown with red highlights (I'm usually a lighter red).

A few days ago, I tried it out and was not at all pleased.  I can't find any real benefit to this concept.  It smelled and was difficult to use.

The mixture smelled far worse than any of the major brands I've used.  It was horrible and made my eyes tear.

The top appeared to be a pump top and it took me a few moments to realize it wasn't at all.  You put the top on and then you need to squeeze the bottle to get the foam.  Personally, I prefer a standard applicator bottle where I could put the color directly on my hair when necessary.  When I tried to do that with the foam bottle, it was very difficult to direct the foam in the correct place and it made a mess.  Plus the bottle is a bit cumbersome to hold that way and squeeze.

This was by far messier than any of the other standard boxed hair dyes I've used.  The foam had a bit of a mind of its own and splattered quite a bit.  My bathroom looked like a crime scene with all the red splatter.  

Maybe it was just because I've never used foam hair dye before, but I found it far more difficult than the standard thick liquid mix.  I found it difficult to tell when the hair was saturated.  The foam isn't very thick, so I redid the same spots quite a bit because I just couldn't tell if they had enough product.

On the plus side:  I love the color.  It's even and is true to the box.  My hair isn't dry or brittle at all.  The included conditioner works well and, unlike other brands, Clairol's foam includes two packets of conditioner with the instructions to use one a week after dying.  I like that a lot.  The package also came with gloves that were more form-fitting and comfortable than those that you have to peel off the instructions which are pretty standard in most boxed dyes.

That being said, I just don't think it's worth it.  The retail price is a bit higher than some dyes and considerably higher than others.  I think some of the kinks could be worked out with repeated use, but I don't think I could stand the smell and the cost to the point where I could try it again.

I love the color, but was very annoyed with the process.

Wordless (day after) Wednesday: It's Not All About the Faces

Living Locurito shared this link from I heart faces and it was just the inspiration I needed.

I really want to step up and blog a bit more, but simply haven't had the inspiration to do so. Well, this changes that. It just so happens that I got quite a few pictures of the kids yesterday that don't involve faces at all.

In one, my (soaking wet) daughter ran up to me and hugged my leg. I took a picture looking down at her little soggy curly pigtails as she hugged me. This is the result:

And thus begins Wordless Wednesday here with the goat rodeo. It's not so wordless and it's not exactly Wednesday, but hey, it's a start.