"This year I want to be . . . "

I love Halloween. It isn’t my most favorite holiday, and I haven’t always loved it, but it is fun and has become a bigger highlight of the year since the girls came along. As they get older, Halloween gets better. I don’t get excited about the pumpkin picking or the trick-or-tricking, although I do like those things a bit. I don’t go overboard decorating, although our home has bats and skulls year round, so this should be the easiest holiday for us. And I’m not a big candy person, although I do have a sweet tooth. It’s the costumes I love. They don’t even have to be elaborate. I just love seeing my girls get excited about dressing up as someone or something else. For that moment, there are no limits. Whatever they want to be, they can be, and they are so happy. I love it. It’s better than the chocolate I steal from their buckets when they aren’t looking.

I’ve been sewing since I was a kid, and I’m a pretty crafty person, but I’m also a realist. When I was working full-time, I bought the girls’ costumes. Did I feel bad about that? HECK NO! They looked frickin’ adorable as an elephant and hot dog or as a dinosaur and kitten! And I didn’t have time to sew or craft. I barely had time to shop. I hate when parents feel they have to make a costume for it to be special or great or whatever. Not everyone can or wants to, and that’s totally fine. 

Cutest dino EVER!

Can you honestly look at this dinosaur and tell me she isn’t fantastic or that she is less loved because I ran to the store a few days before Halloween and bought her that costume? She wanted to be a girl dinosaur, and that’s what she was and she rocked it, store bought or not. The important thing is that my girls get their moment to express themselves and to be on the outside what they feel on the inside, without anyone thinking they are totally insane. OK, so people still think they are a little nuts some years (like this one), but not as nuts as they would seem if they showed up to school any other day dressed this way (which she did do....that picture wasn't actually taken on Halloween). So relax parents who buy costumes, and don’t let Pinterest fool you into thinking sewing is easy for everyone or that Halloween costumes MUST be handmade or totally unique or anything other than what your kid says he or she wants to be.

That being said, I do have time to sew the girls’ costumes, and sewing is easy-ish for me, so I have made the girls costumes the last few years. That’s a good thing because their requests have gotten . . . odder. I have been asked to make a cuttlefish, TARDIS, Tribble, and purple macaw among other things. Yeah . . . I don’t think Old Navy sells cuttlefish costumes. 

This year the girls – thankfully! – wanted simple costumes which were part homemade, part Etsy bought.  My older daughter really wanted to be Leslie Knope of Parks of Recreation, aka “grown-up Sofi!” My younger daughter wanted to be a TARDIS princess. She loved her TARDIS costume, but wanted something swishier and easier to walk in this year plus she had seen a really cool TARDIS hat on Etsy and wanted an excuse for me to buy it for her. So, without further blathering, here are the girls showing on the outside how they feel inside this year:

The inspiration.

Leslie Knope: blazer and blouse were just in her closet already, SUPER scented waffle necklace from Tiny Hands, badge from Uncle Jack’sDesign, and Lil Sebastian made by me and stuffed by my daughter.

TARDIS princess: black shirt and tights already in her closet, AMAZING hat from Hat and Mouse, skirt and cape designed by my daughter and made by me using fabric from Spoonflower (cape fabric HERE, skirt fabric HERE).

quote from here