Our Mommy and Me Halloween Costumes

For the first time in my life, I started brainstorming Halloween Costumes earlier than…um…well…day of. Ha! I really have never been super into dressing up and, normally, whatever I end up being is something I can make out of what I already have in my closet.

So Halloween has seen me as a nerd, a runner or just not dressed up at all.

I know, boring.

Having a baby will change you and your perceptions of all major holidays apparently.

Even though I started thinking of costume ideas months ago, I never stumbled onto an idea that got me excited. But then, just a couple weeks ago, I saw this baby cactus costume on Studio DIY and I felt like I’d found something we could get on board with. After doing more brainstorming, we finally decided that I’d be a cactus and Wendy would be sunshine. Ben’s going to be a turtle (in theory) although we haven’t finished (or even started) his costume yet. We’re a regular ol’ desert scene.

When in Arizona…

Not that I have any room to talk (seeing as how I’ve never been great at dressing up), but can we just agree that homemade costumes are what Halloween is all about? Sure, store bought is easy and stress free, but homemade costumes are so much more creative, impressive and fun (i.e. better;).

And, honestly, making these costumes for Wendy and myself was still fairly easy and it ended up being very cheap.

For my cactus shirt, I was able to find an XXL Men’s t-shirt on the Old Navy clearance rack for only $2.47. I ended up altering the sleeves to try and make them longer and more cactus-y (which was actually waaaay easier than I thought it would be and totally made the shirt NOT look like an XXL Men’s tee). I already had the yarn on hand. For the cactus spines, I just threaded a needle and went at the shirt in kind of the same way you’d tie a quilt. It actually took longer than I anticipated, so if I did it again, I’d spread the spines out a lot more. You live and you learn.

The pom pom flowers could not be any easier. Just wrap yarn around your fingers a few dozen times, then use the end of the string to tie a knot around the center, cut the loops on the end and fluff.

Easy and less than 3 dollars.

Wendy’s costume was also pretty simple. I will say that my original plan was to just dress her in in yellow and make the headband. But October is not really the best time to find yellow clothes sooooo we improvised (which meant a little more work…but maybe cuter than the original plan?). We found the shirt on clearance at Wal-mart for only $1 (and it was a miracle that we found it-it was the only one left and it may or may not be a size 0-3 months…). For the skirt, I just made a simple tulle tutu skirt. The tulle cost about $2 at Joann. We bought the glitter foam at Joann also ($1) and just hot-glued it into a sun (I might make the rays go all the way around the headband so that it looks a little less Lady Liberty).

Making the skirt probably took about an hour and the headband took maybe 10 minutes. Overall, not too shabby.

(Hopefully next week I’ll be able to post pictures of Ben’s costume too).

What are you guys dressing up as for Halloween???