steampunk duo

the first suggestion husband had for our costumes this year: dolly parton & kenny rogers. me as kenny and him as dolly. as much as i know he wanted to dress as dolly, i had absolutely no desire to dress as kenny. i love making an effort with my costume and kenny seemed didn't seem like it be much of a stretch. suit, wig and beard...boring. maybe we'll save this one for another halloween. anyways.

husbands next suggestion: steampunk. (steampunk: works of steampunk often feature anachronistic technology or futuristic innovations as Victorians may have envisioned them, based on a Victorian perspective on fashion, culture, architectural style, art, etc.) yes, we would be explaining this to pretty much everyone who asked what our costumes were. our best explanation, "have you seen wild, wild west or the league of extraordinary gentleman? we're sorta like that."

so once we knew what we were gonna be, we scoured the internet for ideas and photos. here's my main inspirational photo.


we hit up the local thrift stores and even went to mountain city, tn to hit up an army surplus store. luckily we found bits and pieces at each place and our costumes started to come together.

breakdown of my costume. jacket: $8 off ebay, hat: borrowed from a friend, goggles: $7 off ebay, white shirt: mine, corset: borrowed from a friend's wench costume, green skirt: mine, white petticoat: $4 at goodwill, belts: $2 at goodwill, utility belt: $5 at army store, canteen: $3 at goodwill, skirt hikes: homemade, spats: homemade, shoes: mine, hair: $9 extensions, gun: $1 at goodwill.

i would breakdown the husband's outfit but i don't know what he paid for everything. most of his costume is also from his own wardrobe. i know i paid $3 for his nerf gun at goodwill and he paid $2.50 for his goggles at the army surplus store.

i think we both were really happy with the end result. the husband went so far as creating alter egos for each of us and coming up with a history for his own character. i know - NERD!

as you can see from a previous post, the aviator costume the boy wore sorta tied in with ours. this was the main reason i decided to make his costume this year.

next up: pumpkin carving party.

transformation

luckily we figured out what we were gonna be for halloween early on and i was able to search high and low for costume parts. 75% of my costume i already owned or made but there were a few things i had to purchase. this post will be about the transformations i performed on two pieces of my costume. this is my $8 ebay find. super bright but perfect in every other way.




a quick dye job and the color issue was resolved. unfortunately since the thread was coated it did not pick up the dye. i ended up taking a sharpie marker and just coloring the thread. i'm sure there's another method to fix this issue but i knew it would be dark at the party and i didn't want to spend too much time worrying/fixing it. although coloring thread took a lot longer than i initially thought.

the second transformation was my weapon for the evening. a $1 goodwill find.



i'm really happy with how this turned out. a total transformation. it's amazing what a little paint will do. i added some nuts, bolts and gears and about a million layers of paint. tomorrow will be the costume reveal.

the aviator

this will be the first of many posts about our halloween holiday. i thought i'd start with the little man's costume. or i should say one of his three costumes. yes, my parents and aaron's dad both sent costumes for him. and since he had two to choose from i decided there really was no reason for me to worry about making him a costume. both were adorable and warm. (see above photos) but while out searching for bits and pieces for our costumes, i found a little bomber jacket for $2. and *ding, ding* i knew i'd be making him a costume now. especially since it would sorta tie into our costumes.


i was able to find a generic pattern to make an aviator cap. i lined the ear flaps and headband with fleece to make it a little more comfortable for him to wear. i also knew he probably would not wear goggles, so i made a pair using black felt, gold paint and clear plastic all of which i happened to have lying around. i attached them to his hat and used a piece of crepe paper to to make the strap. (i would probably modify this part since it was pretty much shredded after the second wear. but it served its purpose for the most part.) his scarf is actually part of the slip from my costume. the slip was too long for what i wanted to use it for so i cut it down and used the excess to make his scarf. his pants are his normal pants. and the last thing i made were his spats. i found a pattern on the internet to give me a general idea of what i needed to do. of course i had to modify them to fit a much smaller person. i also made these using the fast a furious method meaning i used velcro for the closure and instead of real buttons i used paint. i didn't finish the edges either, i decided painting those would seal them and save me a lot of time.


finally the last thing i made was his candy bag. i knew he'd be using this more than once so i didn't want it to be costume specific. right now i'm all about monsters, the cute and adorable kind, so i just went with it.

ave did great wearing his costume. i was a bit worried he'd refuse to wear the hat since we're just now transitioning from the summer to the winter hat but it wasn't an issue at all. his costume was a big hit and i'm glad i did decide to make it in the end. i'm already thinking about next year...well that is if he lets me pick his costume again. fingers crossed.

halloween illustrated

with halloween around the corner, it's been a crazy madhouse around here. which is both good news and bad news. the crafting/designing bug is back after a super long hiatus. nothing like my love of the holiday to do that to a girl. but it does look like a crafting bomb exploded all over the house. creating costumes, planning and decorating for a party, and keeping after an active toddler has got me burning the candle at both ends.

once again we're doing our annual pumpkin carving party. this year the party is a little bigger and a whole lot better. at least i'm planning more than i did last year. tonight i spent some time working in illustrator, probably more time than i should have, making labels. i'm pretty happy with the way they turned out but it took me a whole lot longer than i expected. i'm so out of practice it's pathetic. hopefully i'm back in the game cause even though it took me long, i actually enjoyed it. yay graphic design!

i'll post pics after the party so you can see them in action as well as all my other creepy food and costume creations. happy halloween everyone!

halloween 2010 in a nutshell

halloweens of yesteryear. yeah, we love the holiday!

cutting up

last week we had a pumpkin decorating/carving party at our place. we had appetizers, chili and butternut squash soup for dinner and cupcakes for dessert. the party was a huge success and i think we may have started a halloween tradition. unfortunately, not everyone was able to carve their pumpkin. we did a little too much chit-chatting and some friends had to leave before we got started. for those who did stay, we did get some crazy pumpkins. see photo below.


and here are two cuties who came but were a little too young to participate. there's always next year, boys!

misfit mama

been hiding under a rock the last few weeks. i need to update about our trip back to illinois and the other going-ons at the westphal house. my schedule is actually full with birthing classes, volunteer work and dr. appointments. i am also trying to clean house before baby arrives but i may have waited a bit too long to do so. the baby gut is definitely getting in the way and having three stories to climb in our house is not an easy feat with minimal lung capacity. we measured and i now have a 40 inch waist/gut. whoa baby!

other baby news to report: hiccups, he pretty much gets them on a daily basis. movement, i honestly feel like he's making more room for himself with the amount of kicking and pushing he's doing. heart rate, 141 bpm at today's appointment. head still down and all else is looking good.

next appointment in two weeks then weekly after that. it's slowly starting to creep up on us and baby westphal will be here before we know it! thought i'd share my 32/33 week pic. since it was on halloween, mama had to dress up. funny thing about the shirt, i bought a huge stash of band tees to eventually cut up and rework at a later date. they fit me perfectly now, go figure! ;)

ms. wooten & magnum p.i. walk into a bar

here we are, all decked out for halloween 2008. no hannah montanas or disney princesses here. good guess ladies. i almost thought i'd have to construct a leotard from scratch. but lucky me, i walk into the children's section at walmart and found one. it was made for a 12-16 year-old but looked like it would fit me. and indeed it does. i took the sleeves off of the leotard, cut up a cosby sweater i found at the thrift store and used the sleeves for legwarmers, cut up another thrift store sweatshirt for the flashdance look, made a scrunchie, found some big earrings at a vintage store and presto... a jazzercise princess was born.

tonight was our dry run. i applied the loud make-up and did up the hair. yep, my bangs are a wall of hair thanks to a lot of hairspray. and yes, those are my own jelly bracelets. i'm definitely a product of the 80's. who is ms. wooten? she was my home economics teacher senior year. she had big hair and loved to jazzercise, so here my homage to her.

aaron is, of course, magnum. another 80's icon. most of his costume we found at the thrift store. the only modification i made was to shorten the shorts. i wanted to go shorter, but he refused. we had a hard time finding a mustache and a brown wig. he ended up wearing one of our black elvis wigs that we trimmed to fit and we found a gray mustache we colored brown with a sharpie. he went out and bought boat shoes and i'm sure he'll never wear them again. i think we did pretty good for last minute costumes. wishing everyone a happy halloween!!

she's a maniac

i got my halloween costume yesterday. yep, the whole thing just came together at the last minute. and guess where i got most of it: in the children's department at walmart. i can pull off a 12-16 year old outfit like no other. i don't know if that's funny or just plain sad!

halloween shebang

unfortunately, i don't remember what year this was. we had a little lag time where we didn't dress up and this falls within that 2002-2004 block. yes, that's "miss aaron" striking her best pose. although i think she went by another name that evening. roxie seems to come to mind.

we didn't get a photo together this year. my costumes always seem to pale in comparison to aaron's. he definitely goes above and beyond with a little help from me. i always have more fun dressing him then myself (see richard simmons in previous post). this particular year i was a "roller girl" scooting around on skates all evening. i do remember giving the shorts away to a co-worker for her 12 year-old daughter. she came back the next day and told me they fit her 6 year-old. yes, they were that tight!

i'm going to go ahead and post the rest of our halloween photos. can you tell i'm in dress-up sorta mood and contemplating whether or not to host a party this year because of it?

halloween 2005, spastic child in footed pjs and the asian boy george.

halloween 2006, devil woman and bat girl. this year my bachlorette party took place the weekend of halloween. everyone dressed up and we hit up the landing in st. louis. this is one of my favorite photos from the evening.

halloween 2001

halloween 2000

halloween 1999

halloween 1998

in action

i finally snagged a photo of carrie wearing my creation. yes, it's been "carrified," i mean sexified. it looks 100x better with the wider neckline. remember i didn't like the seam down the middle to begin with. i'm impressed she was able to make it work. damn, it looks good!

she shrugged

here's the photo of the shrug i completed for carrie last night. once again, shitty camera-phone photo. it's supposed to have a twisted knot on the front but after coming down to model it for aaron, the knot was soon history. hence the seam right down the middle. i would have made it into a jacket but she really wanted it to be a pullover. maybe she can add some flair to cover it up. hopefully she likes it and will be able to wear it. it's really hard to size for people sight unseen. but i think i managed. i even added a zipper along the side, yeah me!

it's a modified shirt pattern that's made for knit fabrics. next i'll have to make one with the appropriate fabric to see how it turns out. my mom will be happy about that. she's been begging me to make her some empire-waisted shirts. another project to add to the list.

i'll post about the weekend tomorrow. now back to sewing.

fold-over clutch

last week i hit up a few thrift stores in the neighborhood, mainly looking for animal print fabric for carrie. she asked if i could make her a leopard print shrug for her halloween costume. i was hoping to find something already made that i could just reconstruct. i'm not too comfortable sewing wearable clothing. unfortunately, everything i found she didn't like and now i'm going to have to construct something from scratch. i'll post photos of my success or failure next week.

on my quest, i did find a big bin of fabric scraps. and stuffed in said bin was a set of vintage pillow shams. i used one last night and made this fold-over clutch. i'm quite happy with how it turned out. it'll be added to the shop when i get it started. still in the process of making inventory. i still can't decide if i want to concentrate on one type of item. handbags, baby wear or just have a hodgepodge of everything and anything.