This year I went with another Mom & Child costume idea and pulled it from one of Avrie's favorite stories. The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Avrie being the Caterpillar and me being the Butterfly at the end of the book. I realized once I started sharing what we were, not EVERYONE knows this book or the story- which is weird to me... but maybe it's because I am mom and obsessed with books!?
Before heading to the fabric store and getting into the sewing room, I spent a lot of time online trying to get other DIY costume ideas. I wasn't able to find much for the butterfly and only a couple ideas for the caterpillar- everything else was store bought/online costumes. I personally don't like to just order online, because then anyone can have the same costume- that's no fun. After some creative thinking, this is what I came up with.
For Avrie's costume I started with a few hand towels and a brown pillowcase. I cut the pillowcase to fit like a dress that could just pull over Avrie's head. I then cut the green & yellow towels into strips so that I could piece and sew them onto the front and back of Avrie's dress. I then bunched the dress is three sections on the front and back and encased a drawstring along the entire costume bottom. I also hand sewed pieces of fuzzy green yarn randomly thorough out the entire costume. The legs were just two pair of brown socks stuffed and sewn into the sides of the costume [this part was tricky and I ended up having to ripe the seam once to resew a sock/leg that was too long to match the other three legs].
Avrie's costume accessories included brown pants, a brown t-shirt, brown boots, brown arm warmers (trouser socks with the toes cut out and a thumb hole made) a lollipop with a hole drilled into it (we used a real sucker on party night and a paper sucker for daycare and trick or treating). Another fun detail was the Very Hungry Caterpillar Headbands and a Very Hungry Caterpillar necklaces. I made two of each so we were matching. Avrie actually helped me in the making of the necklaces, she had a lot of fun string the beads onto the red yarn.
My costume was not as labor intensive, I had a skirt that I did some sewing with but later ditched it as it didn't jive with my vision. Last minute, I found a yellow jersey tunic and paired that with brown leggings, boots and a belt. My showpiece costume item were the wings! I purchased the wings at Joann's for $5 and found some really great colorful fabric that I again cut into strips and attached to the wings to create that Eric Carle piecey look. My Very Hungry Caterpillar headband had butterfly antennas and as mentioned I wore my matching necklace.
I made due with my makeup on hand. I spent some time searching for a few ideas online for "butterfly" makeup. I found stuff, but just didn't have the time to make it perfect. I went with just flaring out my eyeliner, poofing my hair and using a lot of glitter. It worked!
I think my vision of Avrie's costume turned out WAY better than I had planned for, it was TOO darn cute for words. BUT also very hard to get a really really GOOD picture of it. She had fun jumping (and crawling) around like a caterpillar. She also thoroughly enjoyed wearing her costume because as soon as it was on- she couldn't stop saying "do you like my costume" to everyone she walked up to at our party. I loved it!
Avrie had a few different opportunities to sport her costume, one of which include a mini Halloween party at daycare. Of course she wasn't looking at the camera for the group shot- but it's still pretty cute!
Here's a look back at our costumes in 2011 as Big Bird & Cookie Monster & 2012 as Cruella & a Dalmatian. So... what did you dress as this year for Halloween and if you have a little one- what were they!? I love hearing and seeing fun costume ideas!