Favourite Things Friday: Halloween

On Hallowe'en the thing you must do
Is pretend that nothing can frighten you
And if somethin' scares you and you want to run
Just let on like it's Hallowe'en fun.
–Unknown

Halloween is my favorite holiday. It marks the beginning of the holiday season and lots of nice things in store; mine and Mr. Bug's wedding anniversary, Thanksgiving and finally the Christmas season. But first we get to dress up and get a little crazy. I don't have much in the way of Halloween decor, but that's because I spend all my creative energy on the costumes. This year the Little Bugs wanted to dress up as Harry and Hermoine from the Harry Potter series. I was only too happy to oblige. I've had my Professor McGonagall costume ready and waiting since 2005. I checked out several costume spots, but wasn't super impressed with the quality or price of the Hogwarts robes, so I headed to JoAnn's during a 50% off sale. Patterns were on sale for 99₵, which was a big bonus. I put together two sets of school robes {hooray for two more October finishes!}, complete with Gryffindor crests on the chest and we were ready for a little magic.

True confession time — I've had a little bit of a procrastination relapse lately. I was doing fairly well until recently. The procrastination on the Halloween costumes, though, was the worst its been in a very long time. I ended up pulling an all-nighter to finish these costumes in time for the Little Bugs' class parties and Halloween parade at school on Wednesday of this week. It was pretty rough, but worth it (the all-nighter) to hear how excited the kids were on the morning of their parties. Before I went to bed {around 6:30 am} I put their lunches together and showered. When Mr. Bug's alarm went off at 7:30, I

appraised him of the costume and lunch status and asked if I could stay in bed. He was completely obliging. I could hear the kids when they got up. They were pretty excited when they found their costumes on the couch. Mr. Bug was pretty enthusiastic and cute about it too. It had snowed a bit overnight, so he said to the kids that it was like Christmas — snow on the ground and presents on the couch . They came in to show me how they looked before they went to school which was fun.

Oh, and when I say I had the costumes finished, I mean they were wearable, but not done. I still had the hems left but this fabric doesn't unravel so I left that until they got home from school. And I still need to fix one little goof-up on one of the sleeves in LadyBug's costume, but I'll do that before we go out trick-or-treating.

Here is a close up of the Gryffindor crest. I lifted the image from the internet {it's no secret that I'm a dirty sneak thief} and printed it onto fusible ink-jet fabric sheets, adding the perfect finishing touch. I haven't decided if I want to do a little satin stitch around the crests, or not, but I can always go back and do that later.

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Continue reading for more of one of my Favourite Things. Let my spooky playlist to put you in the mood and let's talk a stroll with the Ghosts of Halloween Past. Click on any of the pictures for a closer look.

Halloween 1999: Little Pumpkin, Queen of Hearts, and the Mad Hatter. October 31^st was Grasshopper's due date. I thought that would be a great day for a birthday, but I rented costumes from a local theater and planned on dressing up for work and then attending a party we were invited to, because, you know, first babies are always late. Because of the huge skirt, this costume did a great job of camouflaging my belly. As it turns out, that wasn't necessary because our Little Pumpkin showed up 12 days early. Mr. Bug and I still went to the party, but I was recovering from a c-section and we only stayed for about an hour.

Halloween 2000: Little Pumpkin.

Halloween 2001: Tigger.

Halloween 2004: Tinkerbell and Peter Pan. I'm not sure what happened to 2002 or 2003 , but here we are. I bought a zillion yards of Tinkerbell green satin and organdy {or is it organza? I can never remember} because I started out with a pattern that I was going to make over to work and then found a better one. I'm pretty sure I made three Tinkerbell costumes that year, one for LadyBug, one for Miss Butterfly and one for another cousin on Mr. Bug's side who doesn't have a clever Bug name. I wish I had pictures of all three girls together. Oh, and there's a really good reason that LadyBug is bald. We shaved her head. Really. We hoped that it would help her hair grow thicker and faster and it totally worked. In less than six months she had more hair than we shaved off. The only regret is that we didn't do it sooner.

Halloween 2005: Spiderman and Spidergirl. I didn't really have a pattern for these costumes — only an idea and some really great fabrics. I cobbled together a couple of patterns and filled in with my own design. Sorry for the picture quality. I didn't have my good digital camera and I must not have had the costumes finished when we went to have professional pictures taken for Grasshopper's birthday. I also made my Professor McGonagall costume this year and I decided that I was only going to make costumes every other year after that.

Halloween 2006: Leonardo the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and I can't remember what Grasshopper was. But I obviously implemented the every-other-year plan for making costumes. Grasshopper was done with trick-or-treating after we did our city's Safe Halloween downtown. He didn't want to go around the neighborhood after we got home and changed out of his costume before I could get pictures. On the other hand, LadyBug was a die-hard. We covered every single house we knew in the neighborhood and she still wanted to keep going.

Halloween 2007: King Peter of Narnia. I didn't make this costume; I was going to make him a Batman costume but I ran out of time {procrastination issues } because I was working on LadyBug's costume . . .

. . . Supergirl. Again, I didn't really have a pattern. I cobbled together a couple of different patterns and filled in the rest with my own designs.

Halloween 2008: My sister loved the Supergirl costume from the year before, so the week after Halloween she ran and bought fabric on clearance for a whole family of Supers for 2008. Unfortunately, I had MAJOR procrastination issues and only got a Superman costume done for Cap'n Underpants. I still owe her three more Super costumes.

The Little Bugs really wanted to be Clone Troopers. They have names based on the color of the costumes, but I don't remember the details.

Halloween 2009: No photos and the Little Bugs did not want me to make costumes. Grasshopper was a Clone Trooper again and LadyBug was a police officer. And they were cute. Take my word for it.

I hope you enjoyed my little trip down Halloween Memory Lane.

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