Giles Family Goes Under the Sea — Halloween 2016

I know you’ve all be waiting to hear about our Halloween costumes this year. Are your F5 fingers tired from all the refreshing?

 

Under the Sea – Halloween 2016

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Halloween went surprisingly well, considering the stressful Sunday our family had. I kept Rowan in the carrier during most of trick-or-treating and our neighborhood block party.

The weather was perfect, Zach was not sweltering in his shark sweatshirt, and Lorelei wasn’t too cold with her mermaid outfit.

The plan for this year’s theme came from Lorelei’s request to be a mermaid (after a dozen or so other requests). The rest of the costumes came together with some searching Pinterest for ideas, and thinking about how I could accomplish them without any sewing.

Rowan was a scuba diver. I completely lucked into his flippers at our local scrap store, Scrap Exchange, for $3. I was there looking for odds and ends for the costumes and squealed when I found them. The oxygen tanks (how ironic!) were diet coke bottles and electrical tape. His hoodie and pants were from our local consignment sale, Kidcycle. He would like to know who thought it was a good idea to put flippers on a kid who has just learned to walk.

Zach was a shark. Most of his costume was courtesy of a local thrift shop, Trosa. His fin was a pair of shiny grey athletic shorts that I cut up and used spray adhesive to attach to a piece of cardboard. His teeth were just cardstock.

My seaweed costume was also courtesy of the Trosa dollar bins and the Scrap Exchange. Trosa had a ton of prom/bridesmaids dresses. Scrap exchange had ribbon and random zippers. I ordered the tiny fish from Amazon.

Maya’s Octopus’s Garden costume was a fun Target find. I had joked that I should put an octopus on her head, and immediately found that dog costume. Fake flowers came from the Dollar Tree.

My Yellow Submarine was cut out of cardboard and painted.

The piece de resistance was Lorelei’s mermaid costume. The tail was made from the dollar bin at Trosa — a green dress that I cut and tied as a wrap skirt, and the scales, which were semi-circles cut out of a bunch of different shirts and dresses. Her bikini top was an amazing Goodwill find.

Her makeup was tons of fun. We watched a lot of makeup tutorials over the weeks before Halloween. The scales were a pair of fishnet stockings that I pulled over her face bank-robber style and then blotted eye shadows over before removing. She was so excited to get to wear fake eyelashes and lots of makeup and glitter.

As I said before, I don’t sew. At all. Everything was held together with spray adhesive, fabric hot glue sticks, regular hot glue sticks, and safety pins.

Overall the costumes worked out so well. Lorelei saw hers and said, “Oh mom. This is perfect. Just perfect!” Rowan had a bit of trouble walking in flippers, but I mostly wore him, anyhow.

I know that this is not everyone’s bag, but man do I love making fun costumes! I just wish Halloween happened more often!