Halloween Recap

Hey y'all! I hope everyone had an amazing and safe Halloween weekend!

Since we've shown my nephew's costumes as well it only seems right that I show you his as well.  He was Jack Skellington this year.  He didn't win at the costume parade at school, but he looked great!

I figured since I spent so much time working on these Buzz & Woody costumes, I'd go ahead and recap our weekend and show off our costumes!

First, along with it being Halloween, it was also alumni weekend at Kentucky Wesleyan!  Which meant the city was suddenly full of people that I went to college with.  I love alumni weekend because it is one weekend out of the year that I can sort of "relive" college. I love getting to see the people I spent 4 years with! :)

So all week I worked on these costumes.  For Woody, I got a plain white shirt and cut off the sleeves and cut it down the middle for a vest.  I got a cheap yellow tank top at Macy's and found a red bandana and cowboy hat at JoAnn's.

First, I lined the shirt, and painted the red lines on.  I painted the cow print on the shirt, then took yarn and trimmed the vest.  We added the buttons to the tank top, added a pull string to the vest, and there ya go! The holster was just brown foam that we got at Hobby Lobby with red & yellow felt added to it! And mine was pretty much done! :)

The Buzz costume was a little harder.  I didn't want to buy the backpack with the wings that I'd seen because I didn't think it would be worth it in the long run.  So I decided I'd just make it myself. I took a cardboard foam board, drew out the wings, painted it then cut it out.  I also drew out all the little designs that were on his suit with felt and hot glued them onto her shirt. She made her own tutu, because I hate making them. Ha! 

 Here's the finished product!

 There was also a Mary Poppins and Elsa who joined in on all the fun! :)

We went to a Halloween party, and right around 11:30, I helped our best friend who lives 8 hours away surprise everyone!  Her and her fiancé drove to make sure we all got to spend alumni weekend together!  It was amazing!  There were tears shed and and there were screams, it was wonderful! And finally the "dill pickles" were reunited! :)

On Saturday, we went to KWC and tailgated and spent time with our sorority sisters and our favorite fraternity boys. It was great getting to be together with all of our friends again.  We don't get to see each other as often as we want, but it's okay because when we do, we make it tons of fun!

Sunday came, and all the fun ended....Brittany and Marseilles had to drive back to Arkansas.  Cayla and Lucas went back home...Tina was at her place...we had to leave each other again!  Weekends are always so great when we are all together, but the real world remains out there!

The year is absolutely FLYING by!  I can't handle how fast it's going.  Before you know it, it'll be Christmas!! 


P.S. I may not post as often for a while, we've got a lot going on around the Durbin household, so I may have to take a break from posting every day!

But I will see you soon! :)

XOXO.

3...2...One Day!!!

Halloween is TOMORROW!  How excited are y'all!?  I'm still not finished with my costume...of course.  I probably won't be done until tomorrow....afternoon. Ha!

I figure I'll just do a few more quick costumes!  First up, my Hunter look.  This one got thrown together in a matter of 30 minutes.  I didn't really want to dress up this particular year, but my friends did, so I had to!  I had the boots (they are BOGS hunting boots, and I believe they are from the kids department), the shorts, the hat, and the shirt.  I grew up in the country so I own A LOT of camouflage.  I borrowed the orange tank, and my friends had the brilliant idea to make me a hunter who got mauled by a wild animal, so they cut up my shirt.  It ended up being some pretty serious cuts, I figure I should've bloodied up my body, because I don't believe I would've made it out alive!

I borrowed some camouflage and orange duct tape to add to the pockets of my shorts since you could see them.  And that was it! I was ready!

Just a couple bonus costumes from my sister & nephew!

Mason constantly wants to dress up for special days at school, so I thought I'd add a couple of the costumes I had to make for that.

First was Dr. Seuss day!  He wanted to be the Cat in the Hat.  Felt has become my best friend with his costumes, so red and white felt and a lot of cutting and sewing to make a hat.  Black jogging suit for his body, white gloves and some face makeup for whiskers.  His bow I sewed and stuffed with pillow stuffing.

Not sure why he looks miserable....he wasn't! Ha!

Next was fairytale day! He wanted to be Flynn Rider from Tangled.  Again, I always try to use things we already have.  So, brown jogging pants and a white t-shirt worked great! I bought a baby blue t-shirt and cut it up the middle to make the vest.  I bought three buttons that I thought looked close enough to the same so we could button it together and then drew on some facial hair.  The hardest part of this costume was the Wanted poster I drew so he could carry it around with him all day.  But he had a ball pretending to be him all day, he quoted his favorite Flynn Rider lines all day long! 

That's it!  That's all I've got for this year! :) Monday, of course, I'll do a recap of this Halloween, so stay tuned!

See you soon!

XOXO.

Halloween Costumes Week 3!

8 DAYS!  I'm getting so excited!  I just ordered part of mine & Tina's costumes and it made me that much more excited! :)

Okay, so today I'm gonna do a couple homemade costumes that are perfect if you are waiting until the last minute (I know because my costume was absolutely thrown together a few hours before the party! HA!)

First, let's talk about my in-laws costume!  It's "Curiosity Killed the Cat"! So funny!

The reason why I included this costume isn't because it was last minute for them, but mostly because I think people will have almost everything they need ahead of time to make it!

Basically, for "Curiosity", all they did was take a black shirt and made a question mark with duct tape!  That simple! Of course, he also wore a little "My name is...Curiosity" name tag so that it would be clear!

Now, for the "cat", she wore all black and the mask, tie, and tail she got at Wal-Mart for like $5.  She put on some cat whiskers with makeup, and that's that! Simple as can be and very creative!  They also included some "murder weapons", a rope and a plastic knife, all of which you can also find at Wal-Mart!

Costume #2!  This was literally thrown together hours before a Halloween party, so if I can do it, I know y'all can!
I LOVE Disney. Love it.  No shame in my game, I went to Disney for my honeymoon and I'd go every year if I could afford it!  So when we decided to go to this Halloween party the day of the party, we knew we had to be something that was easy to make! So obviously, Mickey & Minnie!

My favorite thing about our outfits.....the comfort! Ha! :) It wasn't your typical Mickey & Minnie, but we made it work!  We ran to Wal-Mart and grabbed Mickey & Minnie ears, a plain black shirt, a plain red shirt, and red basketball shorts! Simple enough right?
For Minnie, Tina took the red shirt and cut the collar a little so it would fit real loose.  Her outfit is pretty simple, black leggings, black tank, red top.
For Mickey, I just put the outfit on.  I did not do ANYTHING to this!
For our noses, we just used pencil eyeliner.  And we wore chucks for the night! ;)
This was the easiest costume I've ever put together.  And maybe it wasn't close enough to the actual costumes, BUT this was last minute and I think that it worked perfectly!  It was a cheap and easy costume and can easily be recreated!


Last but definitely not least, is my nephew's costume.  Now those above were good last minute costumes....his is not!

                                                                                                                                                                   

It's almost Halloween and I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm almost as excited as my 7-year old!!  I think I enjoy dressing him up as much as I enjoyed doing it myself when I was younger (or now if I had a costume party to go to).

Last year was the first year that my son and I came up with his costume together.  Remember, I told you that he had gotten his first taste of being in a competition and he was now ready to win!  So, when it was time to come up with a costume, we had several choices to go through and lots of internet research (pictures mostly for him).  We finally settled on something creative and not expected!

Mr. Monopoly!

Mason Age 6

This wasn't a particularly hard costume to make.  He had black dress shoes and a white button-up shirt.  I went to Wal-Mart and got a long sleeve black t-shirt and some black jogging pants.  I cut the shirt down the front and sewed it back to look like a suit jacket and then cut a slit on the front left side to create a pocket.  Then I found some green foam sheets, which I took a sharpie and made it to look like money and sewed it into the pocket.  I bought the top hat at a costume shop and the stick he is carrying was actually a magician's wand, but I glued a silver painted "M" to the top so it would look like a walking stick.  I took some money from my Monopoly game and tucked it under the ribbon on the top hat, along with some of the property cards.

The last thing we did was make him a candy bag that looked like a money bag.  I found some white and green felt and sewed a bag and sewed on a money symbol.  Then I took some of the money foam I had made and sewed it around the top so it looked like it was busting out! The mustache was also purchased at the costume shop!

Now, everyone loved this costume and I kept hearing how creative and good he looked, but you know what?  He got third again! Well, at least he was still in the top!  We are going for a win again this year... We'll let you know! :)

                                                                                                                                                                   

That's it for this week!  We have one more post before Halloween, I hope everyone is as excited as we are! :)

See you soon!

XOXO.

Halloween Costumes...Week 2!

15 days until Halloween!!! It's so exciting, I cannot wait to bust out my costume!  I may do a DIY of the costume before Halloween, or I may wait and recap the costume after Halloween.  I'll decide when the time is closer! Until then, we will continue our weekly costume DIY!

So, couples costumes are adorable.  I love when people decide to combine to make an awesome costume.  That could be why in the recent past, my best friend and I have done costumes together.  But today I wanted to show a REALLY original costume idea that my in-laws did! They always have the most original costumes! I love seeing what they are going to do next. 

As y'all probably remember, there was a big scandal with Anthony Weiner sending out pictures of his "hot dog" out to women under the alias "Carlos Danger". Awkward!  My in-laws took the opportunity to turn the situation into a joke and decided that their costume would center on the controversy.

My mother-in-law decided she was going to be an iPhone. The first thing she had to do was figure out how she was going to make it work.  One of my favorite things about this costume is that it had a "text message" page. HA!  To make the text page, she took poster board and typed out a fake conversation, printed it and glued it on.  Complete with a photo! 

For the iPhone portion of the costume, she bought foam board, as it was sturdier than plain poster board.  To get an authentic look to her iPhone, she printed out apps as well as the Apple icon, the camera, etc. that you would find on an iPhone.  Of course, to make the point of the costume a little more obvious, she attached a few Anthony Weiner stickers.

Once all the icons were on the foam board, it had to be put together!  She cut slits at the top of the front and back of the "phone" and used elastic straps so that she could wear it throughout the night.  After she had attached the "text" page to the costume, she put a binder clip on the side to keep it closed.  It also made it easier when she wanted to "open" the text! Genius! For "Carlos Danger's" (aka Anthony Weiner) costume, they simply got a hot dog costume and he wore an Anthony Weiner button.

I mean seriously, talk about original! They have the best costumes! 

Now it's time for my sister to talk another of my nephew's homemade costumes!


                                                                                                                                                  

So, after two years of pirates and sword, my son decided he would like to try a different costume.  He decided he wanted to be the Mad Hatter (yes, you have discovered a pattern, Johnny Depp characters. Yes, my child may be a little obsessed with him.  No, I don't mind, I may encourage it. Just saying.).
He had just seen the movie and thought he was "so cool".  This actually wasn't too hard to do because when I started looking at pictures of Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter, it looked like we could basically throw together things from a bunch of different outfits and it would work.

So, find some bright colored socks and mismatch them.  Check.
We used the same dress pants from the pirate costume because they were already too short.  Perfect.
White button up shirt.  Check.
The vest from his pirate costume.  Check.
A scarf we borrowed from my grandmother with flower patterns and tied it in a bow.  Check.

Ok, the hardest part was the hair.  We found the actual replica hat at a local bookstore, so I didn't have to try and make that. But finding the wig was very hard!  Finally, after a last minute decision, I purchased a Merida wig (the princess from Brave) because it was red and curly and there was plenty of hair!  I stuffed most of the hair up into the hat, because it was a little too big on him and this helped keep it steady on his head.  I also didn't mind that hair poked out funny because that is the point of the Mad Hatter anyway!

I put a little white makeup all over his face, but most of what we did was color around his eyes with blue eye shadow.  And there you have it, he was done!

Mason: Age 5

Now this was the first year he got to compete at school in the costume contest.  He got third and he also got his first taste of whats it's like to win something.  And so it began! From that point on, he was determined to have the best costume and get first place. 

There y'all have it! Week 2 is in the books, we will have another week of homemade costumes next Thursday!

See you soon!

XOXO.

22 Days 'Til Halloween

Halloween is my second favorite holiday, Christmas has always been my absolute favorite, but Halloween is pretty great!

I love scary movies, and all scary things, so of course I love Halloween!  I love to see all the awesome costumes, whether they are homemade or bought from the nearest Wal-Mart or Target.  However, you jerks that choose to be clowns need to get to gettin' because I HATE clowns.

I thought that since there are still a few weeks until Halloween, I'd do one post every week dedicated to making a fun Halloween costume for yourself and I'm going to have my sister add a section on how to make some fun kids costumes!  Full disclaimer, they are "boy" costumes, but whatever if your little girl wants to be Capt. Jack Sparrow, then have at it! :)

Superheroes

Batman/Spiderman/Wonder Woman

When I was younger, my friend and I would constantly talk about our favorite superheroes (yes, we were nerds), hers was Spiderman, and she owned everything she could that had Spiderman on it.  I love Batman. We would argue ALL the time about who was better.  I still hold firm that Batman is better! 

Last year, my friends and I were planning to dress up for Halloween and head over to a party, but we weren't sure who we wanted to be!  I found this cute idea on Pinterest to be superheroes, and to make it girly, wear tutus!  The girls liked the idea so out we went to find shirts and tutus!  But who did we want to be?  I, of course, was going to be Batman.  I made that decision as soon as I saw the idea on Pinterest.  They were going deciding from Wonder Woman, Spiderman, and Superman. Out we went, to Spencer's, Wal-Mart, Party City, any place we thought may have superman shirts.  I found my Batman shirt at Spencer's, Cayla found her Spiderman shirt at Wal-Mart, and Tina's shirt was homemade.  We also picked up some socks at Spencer's.  Then we headed over to Hobby Lobby to find the items we needed to make our own tutus (we couldn't find adult sized tutus).  All we did was buy some elastic (I believe it was about $1.50-$2.00), measured each of our waists, and cut! :)  We also each bought different color tulle (Cayla got black and I got yellow- I believe they are around $4 and we each bought 2) and Tina bought a red t-shirt, a gold glitter foam sheet to draw out the Wonder Woman logo on.

We get back to my apartment and turn our floor into a hot mess of arts and crafts!  I love when everyone comes over and crafts, but the aftermath is never pretty!  After we'd cut the elastic to the size we needed, Cayla and I started working on our tutus, while Tina (who already had a tutu from a previous costume) started working on her shirt.  We cut the tulle in strips (I believe they were 36 inch strips, they may have been shorter), after that we just folded it in half, making sure the bend in the tulle was under the waistband, then pulled the ends down over the waistband and through the loop. The knot doesn't need to be too tight, if it is it'll curl.  We repeated the process until we were satisfied with the fullness of the skirts!  Now, we obviously didn't know how to do this before, and were not thinking about taking pictures of each step, so I thought I would post a link to one of the sites I used when trying to figure out how to make a tutu! Feels Like Home has a great tutorial on how to make a tutu.  She was making it for her child, but it's easily used for adults!

While we were busy doing that, Tina took her plain red shirt, laid it flat on the ground, and took her gold foam sheet and a sharpie pen and drew out the Wonder Woman logo.  When she finished, she just cut it out and glued it to the shirt.  As simple as that! We finished up, got all dressed up and were out the door!

Full disclaimer, we wore shorts under those.....because they were much needed! Cayla is also wearing red tights because we didn't have Spiderman socks! Also, I chose to make a yellow tutu instead of a black one because my shirt and socks were black and I wanted something bright!

There ya have it! An easy, cheaper alternative to the slutty superhero costumes! :)

I even got my husband to "dress up"!  Score!  He hates Halloween, he thinks dressing up is silly, and I can never get him to wear a costume.  Sooo, I wasn't sure how to make him do it, but I suggested he dress as Alfred, because he had a tuxedo tee that I thought would look perfect! Once he realized he really only had to wear black pants, a t-shirt, and a coat, he agreed!

Now, onto my nephew's favorite Halloween costume and my sister's DIY! 

                                                                                                                                                  

Fall is my favorite time of year! Not only because I get to break out the comfy sweaters and boots, but also because when fall comes, so does Halloween!

I honestly cannot tell you why I love Halloween so much.  Maybe it's the candy, the haunted houses, or the mass amount of ghost shows that appear on television, but I think its mostly because I get to show my creative side with my son's costume.

Now, my son has never really been a easy costume type of kid.  He was three when he decided he needed to be something that I had to try and create.  (And let me tell you he was a very specific 3 year old, maybe he got that from me, I'm thinking his Aunt) So since that was the first costume I had to creatively put together,(and the second, because he carried this costume over to the next year.  Did I mention he looooooved this character?) I will start out the homemade Halloween costumes with it!

Introducing Captain Jack Sparrow

Mason: age 3

For this costume, I had to buy a hat and a wig but luckily we found those pretty easy.  Most Halloween stores had some type of pirate wig and hat.  Keep in mind, it had been several years since a Pirates of the Caribbean movie had been out.  I pulled a picture of Captain Jack from the movie and used it as a reference when I was trying to put his outfit together.  His vest and pants were part of a suit that he had outgrown, but for this, the shorter legs were perfect.  The white undershirt was actually one of mine that I pinned together in the back and hid under the “jacket” (which is an XS lightweight miliatry jacket, that I found in the clearance section of TJ Maxx.)  The scarf tie was also a clearance item from Walmart.  (We got lucky on all the clearance)  His rings were actually little girl rings that came in a party favor set.  I painted them black and didn't mind if it chipped.  That added to the piratey look! His boots are mine but he enjoyed playing in them so much that I couldn’t tell him no.  Finally, his candy sack.  It's just a black gift bag that cost $1 and I printed and cut out the pirate flag and glued it to the front.  I drew his facial hair on with an eyeliner pencil and cut some hair from the wig and braided it to make his little hairs hanging from his chin.  

He was definitely a hit!!! Everyone loved his little costume and he loved it so much he played pirate in it for months.  And when Halloween came around the next  year, guess what he wanted to be?

Mason: age 4

Captain Jack Sparrow (round 2)

For the second year, the fourth movie had been released.  And now the costume was available.  So we had something a little closer to the original to work with.  But my son had to look as close as possible!  So we took one of my belts and added it to make a sword holder.  Used the same jacket, boots and rings from the year before.  We had to add some new facial markings, because, believe me, he noticed them in the movie.  And this year, we made a pirate sack from a burlap bag for his candy.  

                                                                                                                                                                        

It's important for you to know, that kid loves pirates more than anyone.  And if anyone didn't think that his costume was spot on..... here is something for ya!

Ha ha! I loved that costume.

Well that was Week 1 of Halloween costumes!!! Come back, same time next week, for Week 2!  If we are lucky, I'll have an very interesting (and VERY original) couples costume! ;)

See you soon!

XOXO.