When I was a child I desperately wanted to make costumes for
myself for Halloween and Purim. We didn’t have a sewing machine and although my
mom is very creative, making costumes was not her thing. I remember spending one particularly
long October afternoon when I was eight taping paper together to try to make
myself a tennis ball costume (I had a pet tennis ball named Shrimp Doc. That should explain it all.). A tall order, for sure, and not one I was able to fulfill.
In the end I was always Little Red Riding Hood
for Halloween because I had a red knit capelet that I wore as a coat in the fall. Grab the bread
basket for collecting candy and the costume was complete. It was fine, but it wasn’t what I imagined it could be.
But now I’m a grown up! And I can sew!
As you can imagine, I spend some portion of my weekends
every October sewing Halloween costumes with my kids. We work together, choosing
who will be what, collecting and buying supplies, sewing and fitting and sewing
some more. I don’t use commercial patterns for their costumes. We wing it. Some parts we buy, some parts we make. It always works.
If you’ve ever been trick-or-treating you know it’s done after dark and involves lots of
running and jossling with other kids. The costumes don’t really get seen and
kinda get in the way of maximum candy hording. But at our elementary school here in Wellesley, on the morning of Halloween, the kids parade outside, circling the
school, marching with their older reading buddies. This parade makes sewing the
costumes so worth it. When we’re in our Burlesque Outfits we express some aspect of our selves more clearly than we can in our usual clothes.
Here’s a look back at the Glassenberg
girls’ on Halloween in years past:
In 2009 we had a 4-year-old Pharaoh and a 2-year-old Fairy Princess Ballerina (why choose one when you can be all three?). Roxanne had already become a historian.
Right now if you ask Roxanne to choose a favorite day from
her life so far she will pick Halloween 2010. That day she showed up at
school as a five-year-old Abraham Lincoln and all her dreams came true.
Simon dressed as his beloved baby lovey, Pink Kitty.
In 2011 Simon had an imaginary house that he told us about every day at great length. It was his “swamp house” and it was built by a beaver and included ornate concrete fountains. He was the beaver for Halloween.
And Roxanne was a 1st grade George Washington. I’m proud of those epaulets.
The following year Simon was an astronaut and Roxanne was Amelia Earhart.
And last year? We had listened to the audio book of the original Peter Pan over the summer (oh my is that a weird book!). Consequently we had a Suffragette and Peter Pan.
Right now my studio is full of rubber snakes, pieces of a bed sheet toga, silver lame, and aluminum dryer vent tubing. Medusa, a robot, and a bumblebee will emerge from our house on October 31. Look out!
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Do you make costumes for your kids? Have your children dressed as anything unusual, or very expressive of themselves at a particular age? Tell me some good Halloween costume stories.
Abby – I LOVE these pictures! Absolutely fantastic. As you know, this year I have a Knight and a Dragon and I used your Hobby Horse pattern to make Will his “white steed” (which is becoming a brown steed from outdoor play…
I’m a huge fan of making Halloween costumes, even if it doesn’t mean sewing from scratch. Just assembling things together rather than buying a pre-made costume allows you to be creative, problem solve, and get excited about the ideas and solutions you come up with to make something fun.
I grew up with home-made costumes, and the best part was when I became old enough to really participate in the process. Some of my friends may have looked more professional or recognizable in their store bought costumes… but they often forgot quickly what they’d dressed as in previous years, while I remembered clearly the process of creating something.
That’s exactly right. Looking back I remember so clearly what each child was interested in at that moment in time. And the process of making/assembling these costumes has made my kids feel like we can make anything. It’s pretty great!
Although we don’t celebrate Halloween where I live, I have made lots of costumes over the years, both for my daughter and other young members of my family. Making costumes for my daughter was actually how I started sewing in the first place, and like you, always winging it. A clown with matching costume for her doll, lots of Pippi Longstockings, one with a knitted stuffed monkey, princess, queen, Esmeralda, Aunt Sofie from the book Cardamom town by Thorbjørn Egner.
My favourites were the fleece Teletubby suits that I made for my big time Teletubby fans twin nieces when they were two years old. They got them for Christmas and wore them 24 hours a day, even on Christmas Eve with their woollen bunads inside. Those suites were loved to death. The same was their Aunt Sofie and Pippi costumes. You’ve gotta love that.
I love your kids’ costumes! Especially the little suffragette. That is awesome.
Last year my son Toby, age 2 1/2, refused to wear his Halloween costume, which was a dinosaur. We kept asking him what he wanted to be for Halloween and he kept saying “I want to be a Toby!”. After a day or two I stopped pressuring him to dress up. If he wanted to be Toby, who was I to say otherwise? No trick-or-treating without a costume, though.
This year he says he wants to be an excavator for Halloween. My husband is in charge of the costume; so far it involves a bunch of cardboard and a whole lot of duct tape…
Roxanne’s costume ideas are always so impressive! This year the three year old says he wants to be the alphabet.
Growing up we weren’t allowed to dress up for Halloween. That all changed when I was 12 and in junior high. Suddenly the costume making began. I remember buying a makeup kit that had a cool bunny on the packaging. I made up my sister’s face with it and had a neighbor mom asking me to do her face too. Then I made another sister an Egyptian costume from a sheet. What fun!!!
I love all the cool costumes, especially the Amelia Earhart and suffragette costumes.
I LOVE it… three year olds are pretty hysterical. My oldest is three and he had NO ideas about what he wanted to be for Halloween, so we picked a Knight and his brother will be a Dragon. I got library books about knights and horses and dragons, tried to get them both excited about it, and then when I was inches from finishing his Knight costume, he decided he wanted to be a pumpkin. He has been telling everyone who asks him that he’s going to be a pumpkin for Halloween.
I found him a pumpkin Halloween shirt and he wears it every time it comes out of the laundry… close enough!????
I love that your 3 year old wants to be the alphabet… I think that could be very fun – he could be a big letter with all the other little letters on him in different sizes! So many possibilities, so cute 🙂
These are amazing! My mom never made my costumes for me but they were usually slap dashes of old costumes. One year, I was a ninja because we weren’t allowed to wear our kung-fu uniforms outside of the school. My sister put bright red lipstick on me (I think I asked for make up?) so I was obviously a little girl with make up on dressed as a ninja. It was really cute.
I’m picturing Roxanne as a femme Theodore Roosevelt. That would be super cool. (He’s my favorite President.) I think she could rock the walrus ‘stache really well.
You’ve seen my efforts, I think. With Annabelle at 14 now, I live in fear my costume-making tenure may be nearly over. But right now I’m working on a Steampunk Aviator costume. Onward!
I have always made my son’s costumes, ever since at the age of 2.75, when he announced 2 days before Halloween that he wanted to be a cat like on Dora. I didn’t even register that Dora had a cat. Since then, he’s been a skeleton, (2 years), Mario, Alvin the Chipmunk, and a green ninja . He doesn’t know what he wants to be this year. I’m hoping for something to go on soon. Last year, I had to bring his costume to school while I finished up the head gear.
My daughter, well, she was gifted a whole rack of skating and halloween costumes 3 years ago. Some of them still fit her. And she’s alright with that. Me too!
OMG! Best blog post ever! I just love it!!!
By the way, you’re the best mom, ever 🙂
I had a very similar experience to your childhood… my costumes were so lackluster. Hmm… maybe I need to start dressing up, now 🙂
A costume that is loved to death is the best kind of costume of all.
Our 2-year-old is changing her mind every hour. I finally told her if she wants to get candy she has to be a bumblebee. The end.
Agreed, Tiffany. The alphabet is a great costume. We had an alphabet birthday party here a few years ago and it was amazing.
Yes, you do, especially if your new neighborhood has a lot of trick-or-treaters. We get 100s! A great opportunity to dress up as an adult.
Those costumes are amazing, Abby! Seriously, a suffragette? Most awesome Halloween idea ever.
We make or buy our kids costumes as their ideas dictate. Simon (who is five this year) has only ever wanted to be a shark, and I can’t make anything as cute as what’s available on the market. But this year he wants to be a car, so I’m busting out the cardboard, duct tape, and spray paint. I love how their imaginations come out at Halloween–you’re right about them expressing parts of themselves through dress-up that they can’t express other ways.
One year I made my daughter a wizard costume. (She is of the Harry Potter generation.) I made mistakes, and had to “wing it” to make it fit. Ironically, she won two costume contests in that outfit and had a wonderful time. She still loves Halloween at age 22, and now crafts her own outfits and makeup! Home-made are the best-made!
I remember spending hours (days) making a parrot costume for my son from crepe paper and papier mache for a mardi gras party. All the other kids had store-bought costumes – he certainly stood out! Another year he wanted to be a tree…
Only one year did I have a store bought costume. All the others we made. One of my favorites was made out of our old living room drapes 🙂
Wow, we don’t get any trick-or-treaters around here! The community festivals are so popular now, it seems like kids don’t go door to door anymore. (But they are mostly on the weekend this time, so we’ll see what happens on Thursday!)
I still remember how indignant I felt at age 5, having to wear a turtleneck AND undershirt under my Wonder Woman costume! (it is cold in New Hampshire). I’ve made most of my son’s costumes, though this year we are just adding some store-bought accessories to the “Camp Half Blood/Percy Jackson” shirt I made him this summer. My favorite was the year I covered a thrift store snowsuit in white duct tape to make him an astronaut: http://www.stitchcraftcreations.com/2009/10/30/ready-for-takeoff/
I remember that costume from your blog! I’m afraid when my daughter was an astronaut we weren’t quite as creative.
The worst is when it rains on Halloween. Let’s hope for good weather and dry costumes this year!
Saw this costume site & thought you four would like it! Most are based on historical figures ~ http://takebackhalloween.org/category/costumes/
Love these costume! You little historian is such a cool kid. I am making my first halloween costume ever for my six month old. Starting a new tradition 🙂
I’m a dad, but I’ve taken a shine to sewing, so initially it was going to be a simple fleece cape and cowl for my four year old caped crusader – he wanted to be Batman.. Until two weeks prior to Halloween, when he suddenly wanted to be an astronaut. Now I won’t say it came out perfect, but a marathon of late night sewing and wielding a hot glue gun, I had an astronaut costume he absolutely loved. It was hard, it was not perfect, I improvised a lot of the pattern, but the look on his face when dressed up was priceless.