We’re all ready for Halloween already! I feel kind of proud of our homemade costumes this year. Star Wars merchandise is super expensive to buy so I got creative at home. These are way better than the matching kilts I made us last year. It was fun for all of us!
Cute little Princess Leia-Rose. For her dress I used our one and only old sheet. People are always saying, “just use an old sheet” for crafts and projects, but we’ve never had any! In our nearly 6 years as a family, we’ve only worn out one fitted sheet. That’s all. Now it’s been recycled into an ultra simple Leia dress. No more free white costumes for another 5 or 6 years now.
THE DRESS: All I did was loosely trace one of Rose’s other dresses and sew around the necessary edges. I did hem it and attempt a little neckband, but it’s shoddy, lumpy workmanship. Halloween is the one day that it’s ok to flaunt poorly sewn clothing and make true seamstresses everywhere CRINGE. [evil monster chuckle]
THE BELT: I cut a piece of felt and glued foil circles all around it. Easy.
THE HAIR: We got a ball of super-fat brown yarn and I experimented with different ways to twist it and attach it to a squirmy one-year-old’s head. Headbands, hats, bows, nothing would stay on! It was a tricky operation, but we finally landed on clip-on Leiabuns. That way we can acknowledge the fakeness of the yarn-buns without trying to make a yarn wig look real. Yarn wigs are NOT easy to make. I put Rose’s hair into pigtails and then added a bow-style clip on the back of each yarn cinnamon roll and clipped them to her pigtails. She called them pretties—they are more like floppy dog ears.
We need to work on Rose’s sassy assassin look, but other than that, she’s a dead ringer.
And now for this guy. I tried and tried to arrange that old sheet so I could get a Luke Skywalker tunic AND a Princess Leia dress out of it, but there was that pesky old worn out holy part that I had to avoid. So I had to search for alternatives.
The answer dawned when I looked in Jay’s “still-a-little-too-big” clothes drawer. A size 5T button-up white Sunday shirt! And while we were at it, his brown Sunday belt! and hey, there was a pair of pale back-pocket-less khaki pants in the almost-too-small stack. SO:
TUNIC: We folded the shirt’s collar under and pinned the shirt into a v-neck. Then we put the belt on top and the pants underneath.
THE BOOTS: I got some khaki felt-by-the-yard at the fabric store, cut two long strips off of it, and wrapped them up Jay’s legs to the knee. Then I fashioned shoe-covers out of more felt, like the ones that come with store-bought costumes. I felt kind of genius while I was cutting, wrapping and taping felt to my child.
THE LIGHT SABER: Long ago, Grama Leslie gave Jay a little mini light saber, so he’s using that. The hilt was once filled with M&M’s.
No way was I going to try making Jay some Mark Hamill hair. His natural blond buzz will do. I think Jay looks a lot cleaner than Luke. When I asked Jay to come over so I could take a picture of him, he said “I’m not Jay right now, I’m Luke Skywalker!”
After we finished piecing and pinning the costumes together, I followed Jay and Rose around, taking pictures, and cracking up at the hilarity of these two baggy whiteguys. Enjoy:
These costumes aren’t exactly durable…
woof woof woof
3 comments:
I am always impressed with how you come up with stuff for little to no cost! Especially the "laminated" family magnets - I am so using that idea. And personally I think Jay would be fine without the shoe covers use white shoes (if you have them)
Soooo adorable! I love the Leia buns. Jay and Rose are so lucky to have such a creative and fun mom :-)
Love these! I am awful at do-it-yourself costumes...you rocked it this year :)
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