Aunt Becky's First Halloween Costume Party & This Year's Homemade Costumes

 For weeks Kai has been asking for an Elsa costume, either for Christmas or sooner.

I was planning to make her one, but didn't have the fabric.

Delsin has changed his mind a zillion times since summer.  

I was going to try to make him some kind of Wild Kratts costume,

but he changed to some kind of zombie Incredible Hulk.

When we got home from the hospital Daniel announced that Mama would not be sewing any costumes this year and they would either stay home on Halloween night or figure out something from the huge costume box already in the playroom.

At first Delsin was in shock and so I told him one year I dressed as a hunch-backed person with make-up and a hoodie with a pillow in my back.

Immediately  he wanted to do that.  So for the costume party this past weekend at Aunt Beck's house he dressed this way, and also for the Cub Scout Halloween party last night.

Enoch was easy.  We already had a couple of Spiderman costumes in the costume box.  He was happy.

For Kai and Carolina, I had to go to Walmart today after Lenore's first pediatrician appointment.  I had to pick up a few essentials, so I grabbed a couple of yards of turquoise tulle, and a roll of 10 yards of turquoise tulle with glitter on it, and a roll of glittery turquoise ribbon (1.5 inch).  I was going to make hair bows with the ribbon, instead of crowns, but I just ran out of time.  I should work on those today, perhaps.
So, I took the 2 yards of tulle and cut two perfect length capes out of it.  I used this tutorial as a reference for the style of cape I wanted.

Being reminded of this tutorial,

I decided to use Carolina's old beauty pageant dress we still had in the costume box, as the skirt to her Elsa dress.
I had Kai cut up the rest of the blue and white tulle we had on spools and I tied it onto some elastic to make the skirt for her Elsa dress. 
For the bodices I made a tube out of that 10 yard toll of 6inch tulle with glitter on it and slipped that over their heads.  Underneath it all I picked up some turquoise long sleeve shirts and leggings at Walmart earlier in the day.  So I did a tiny bit of sewing, but not much really.  I was able to put a couple of Elsa costumes together, WITH breastfeeding breaks I might add, in about  2 hours.
I'll make the hair bows soon and post pictures of those too.

Lenore and I thoroughly enjoyed staying home and cuddling.  I just couldn't take her out in the night air, being less than a week old and all.  I'm not sure if the kids will get to go trick or treating at all this year.  If Daniel is working late I might wrap Lenore up in a baby carrier under my coat and let them walk up River Street, which is just the next street over.  We'll see...

Edited to add a few pictures from Halloween night.
The bottom picture in this collage shows Carolina's expression when she found out Daddy wouldn't be able to get home from work in time to take them trick-or-treating.
But I had already come up with a back-up plan.

I didn't get any pictures of anybody wearing their costumes together, because once I announced Daddy couldn't come home I quickly announced that I'd take them to the street behind our house (where 6 houses were giving out candy).
So I put Lenore in my ring sling and wrapped her up with me in my coat.

 She wasted no time in falling asleep.

 Before she knew what happened we were back home in warmth for cuddling.

The First Outfit for Lenore

We have decided on a name for our newest baby girl.

Lenore is her first name. 

We are still praying about it though, and about her middle name.

These things are very serious, ya know?

Last night I finally got her first outfit made.

 I've been wanting to make her an outfit like this one I found on Pinterest.

 

But I didn't have enough fabric to make a gown, so instead decided to make a skirt and applique a little circle on the onesie with her initial on it. 

This was my first time to use my new embroidery machine 

a Singer XL1000.  I bought it from one of my sisters in recent weeks.

Last night, or early this morning rather, I discovered it's missing the embroidery foot.

But I was able to carefully embroider without any foot at all. 

Only problem was it was not in the center.

Sure I tried testing it a zillion times before embroidering on the actual onesie, but that didn't stop it from being cattywampus on me.

So I took an hour or more to rip that one out and put another one right smack on top of it cattywampus and all too!  

'Cause that's how I roll at 4 AM.

And that's how it's gonna stay.  Oh well!

I made it to bed at 5 AM and made it to my 8 AM Dr. appointment.

'Cause I'm a little bit crazy like that.

But it's been a good day, and I just might make a hair bow if I can get this load of laundry hung up before tomorrow morning.

(Big grin)

I've got a little strip of fabric that's just begging to be rolled into a rose and glued to some 1/4 inch elastic.

Spiderman Birthday Cake

 

Enoch is so into Spiderman right now.

In fact, that's what he wanted for his birthday.

Spiderman everything.

So, naturally I had to attempt my hand at a Spiderman cake.

 I watched this video on youtube for help.

But I didn't paint the fondant.  I dyed it with Wilton icing dye.

This is my favorite fondant recipe.

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/cake-fondant/detail.aspx

 This was the face template I used.

I cut out the eyes from this template.

http://www.hmcoloringpages.com/free-printable-coloring-pages/spider-man-face-template-cut-out/

First I cut out the black background and then layered the white on top.

I know it's total amateur night over here at the Urick household,

but I'm kinda proud of it anyway.

Enoch absolutely loved it, and that's what matters most.

Happy 3rd Birthday My Love!

Signature Style Special Occasion Wear

This week's project for Project Run and Play is the signature style challenge.

My signature style has always been special occasion wear.

This may seem like an eliminating factor to some since most people wouldn't let their daughter play in a pageant dress, but my girls have the pleasure of playing dress-up in their dresses after pageant day. 

I found my signature style when I found my calling for sewing.

As a child I wasn't able to wear the dresses I longed to wear because my family was pretty poor.

I wanted to wear dresses like Carolina's Lucille Ball dress every day of my life.

I got hand me downs and wore the heck out of the prettiest dresses, to gather the eggs out of the hen house, chase down the ponies, and feed the hogs.  

When the county pageant came around each year I couldn't enter because we couldn't afford the dress.

So, I just knew I would learn how to sew so my daughters could enter the county pageant every year if they wanted to.

The first dress I ever made was my little sister's prom dress.

I wish so badly I had a picture of it.  

That was over 20 years ago though.

I might have to make a replica of it someday.

The second dress I made was for the Homecoming Queen.

It just goes on from there.

A few weeks ago I made this dress for Kai to wear in the county fair pageant.

She's really into Barbie dolls right now, so I made her Barbie a matching gown.

Kai said all of her friends told her she reminded them of a Disney Princess, which makes this dress a total winner in her eyes, and therefore mine as well.

Afterall, she is my inspiration. 

I think the curly ruffles is what sets this dress apart from the others.

I made them by adding 80lb test fishing line to the hem, as can be seen in my tutorial here.

The best part about looking at these pictures is knowing she just got through winning first place in the bicycle race right before slipping into her dress and sashaying out onto the stage.

Atta girl!