Sorry to leave you all hanging there with the Halloween business. What happened with the fish? Was it finished? (Ouch. That was for you, Kevin.) Well yes. We made it. Of course I don’t have very good photos, but here they are:
I messed up the proportions a bit in the back and made it a tad too long, but frankly it’s a bit of a miracle that it has any resemblance to a fish at all, so I shouldn’t pick at it. You know those test questions where you had to look at a 2D image and pick which 3D shape it would make? Those weren’t exactly my strong suit. So pattern making is a bit of a stretch for me. I’ve been attempting to sew for years now, and every time I take pattern pieces and stitch them together correctly, I get a thrill. (WOW! Look what that made!! I can’t believe it!) The fish was cozy and comfortable and Hot Wheels was happy with it, so it’s all good. Here’s our wood fairy:
Fortunately this was a very basic setup – we bought two fallish sprays of fake plants from the fabric store and hot glued them to a pair of old brown pants and a tunic stitched up from a curtain remnant. My kind of sewing! She wanted an acorn bag and elfy shoes, so I used scraps from the American Indian princess outfit from the second grade. Hands down, my favorite part of any fairy/princess outfit is the headgear. This one was made from a ring of brown fuzzy pussy-willow-like stuff, twirled with this super thin bronze colored wire. The wire had the quality of a line drawing in her hair – I love that. If I were a jewelry designer, I think I’d just make crowns and tiaras all day.
On Halloween night we had an amazing chili dinner with our lovely neighbors. The girls were a cupcake and a queen.
I don’t do kids’ faces here, so you’ll have to imagine how insanely lovely they were. Didn’t Joan do an incredible job with these costumes? That cupcake just turned out magnificently, from the felt flower decoration to the perfectly pleated wrapper. Fantastic. Too bad they had to walk around with these clowns…
Tom made himself into a cool jelly fish, using an old shower curtain, some balloons and a string of lights – he was a big hit. I decided to go with gothick this year – basically a goth outfit with a lot of bugs thrown in. Hard to see here, but I hot glued spiders and other plastic bugs onto hairpins and put them through my hair, and just used false eyelash glue for the ants. It was so much fun – I think my favorite part was cutting up the t shirt and stockings with patterns. Even Hot Wheels thought that was cool.
The whole goth look was a blast, but man! what a lot of work. I practically needed a brillo pad to get that lipstick off. Yoikes. And it had the unintended consequence of completely freaking one of my young neighbors out – when we went over for dinner she just had to leave me for a while because it was all so horribly wrong. Fortunately, she came around and we had a great night.
In other good news, after a loooonnnnngggg week, Honey is finally looking and feeling more like herself again. Turns out that when you take Motrin for a long time it does a serious number on your stomach. But it looks like we’re out of the (knock on) woods – her mouth is back to mild discomfort and she’s much, much happier. It’s fantastic!!! Here’s to a great weekend, everybody!