Halloween Costume: Inky the Ghost

For Halloween this year, my 4 year old wanted to be a ghost--a sheet ghost. I think he's been watching too much Scooby Doo. So I've never actually seen anyone do this, but it seemed a) kinda lame, and b)a little dangerous in terms of keeping little eyeholes lined up with little eyes. So I did what any mother does, asked every few days what he'd like to be hoping for a different answer, and started thinking of ways to keep a sheet in place on a little body. Sleeves? Big face hole alla Scream? Cape with Hood? I bought materials and continued my campaign against the ghost.

At the beginning of October, I revised my strategy, and started pushing options via online photo searches. Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, a "Hack-Man" app, and some quiet coaxing, was able to morph a sheet ghost plan into a PAC-Man ghost plan. Woot-Woot!!
I still didn't have much of an implementation plan, and the Internet failed to offer up a nice tutorial. But I plowed ahead, purchased Costume grade satin and 1/2 inch foam, then improvised. A small creative miracle happened because the costume is nearly perfect.
Unfortunately for the next frantic searcher looking for a ghost costume, I didn't take progress photos to make a tutorial for them.

Some quick tips:

1 cut a headhole in the center of the foam. (I used 42x24 inches for my 44 inch child)

Cut 4 trapezoid shapes evenly spaced in the bottom edges on either side of the foam.
Cut 2 pieces of fabric with 4 inches clearance on all sides (50x32 for me)
Make eyes. I used 2 CDs offset to make an oval shape for the whites, and a water bottle for the blacks. Both from fleece, zigzag stiched to appliqué to each other then to the satin.
Then sewed the 2 pieces of satin together to make a long tube.
I traced the trapezoid scallop onto one inside out edge of the tube and sewed w 1/4 inch seem allowance, then repeated on the other side.
Turn right side out, stuff w foam, cut headhole into satin w 3/4 inch seam allowance.

Zigzag head hole closed, then cover seam w a tube of robbed knit fabric.

Close stuffing seam.
Sew sides together near edge leaving openings at top for arm holes.
And done.

Oh, and did I mention it's reversible with a white ghost on the inside!?

Too bad this was the year Connecticut called off Halloween because of a freak snow storm 2 days before that shut off power to most of the state for days and days. 

Old Nursery/New Nursery

This is my old nursery, which I love-love-loved through my 2 boys.  The bedding is a commercial set that was available at the major baby stores 5 years ago called Zanzibar.  I just had a baby girl, and I was going to keep the nursery the same for her.  I love it, it's unisex (a boyish unisex, but nonetheless), and it would be wasteful to change it. 

Then in his enthusiasm about having a baby girl, my husband volunteered to paint.  He hates painting, truly hates it! So of course it was an offer I couldn't refuse.  I started browsing colors schemes and fabrics, wanting a more home made look this time around, Pinterest became my friend and near constant companion. I finally settled on aqua and pale orange for the colors.  Next came the search for fabric.  I can tell you from what I saw online that aqua/orange is going to be the IT color combination next summer, but it hasn't hit yet.  I searched for months and months, online and in all the local fabric stores.  I finally gave up on finding the perfect pairing of aqua/orange in a single print, but I found these: 

Since it took me so long to find colors and fabrics, there were only a few weeks left in my pregnancy to implement.  Instead of doing useful things with the little bits of free time we have, my household was struck by a string of malignant colds that waylaid us.  Fortunately my mom's new baby visit started 1 1/2 weeks before baby's arrival, and I put her to work in my sweatshop.  She painted and sewed and plotted and knocked out most of what I had planned.  I wish she could stay forever and finish my projects and keep us all company.  Thank you soo much, mom!!  Pictures of the resulting nursery and hopefully a few tutorials will be coming...

Kid Crafts - Preschool Projects

My son started preschool this fall.  One of the things I love about his school is that they do crafts every day.  The teachers are very creative with the crafts, and they use the time as an opportunity for the kids to manipulate all kinds of mediums.  Here are some of my favorite projects so far:

Apple Trees.  I was parent of the day when they made these. The branches are handprints, they used their arms to stamp the trunk, and dotted red apples with their pointer fingers.


String Leaves.  They did these by dragging string through the paint, then across the paper.

Paper Plate Pumpkins.  An easy one: paper plate, orange paint, cut out eyes, nose, and mouth.









Marble Spider Web.  Similar to the String Leaves, but this time rolling marbles in black paint then across the page.






Turkey.  This may be my current favorite.  The handprint turkey where each finger was painted a different color for the tail and the palm and thumb made the body and head.  Add legs, waddle, and beak plus a google eye.  The teacher wrote what each kid said they were thankful for.  Jackson said, "My rooster and my chickens."  We were asked before leaving if we had chickens, or if Jack was making up tales.  In an earlier activity, he said he was thankful for "his mom and dad and brother Jonah."




Pudding Paint Bear.  Self explanatory with google eyes.






I'm looking forward to the upcoming projects.  I hear they're making gingerbread men from sandpaper next week. 

Thanks to the teachers at Columbia Cooperative Nursery School!

Sharpie Magic: Fixing the Ugly

I bought a new Ergo carrier from the folks at babysteals.  I was a little apprehensive about it, but I convinced myself that there was bad lighting in the picture and the real thing would be beautiful.  In real life, the carrier was worse than in the photograph.  It was black with flower embroidery details in the most shocking pink, gold, and blue jewel tones.  The colors were so bright that I was reluctant to wear it out in public.  I've heard many people love their Ergo's and I wanted to love mine too, but I just couldn't.
I tried unpicking the embroidery.  Unpicking it didn't harm the fabric, but they had done such high quality needlework, that I couldn't get the thread to come out.  So I had to take drastic measures with my old friend the Sharpie.  I've used the Sharpie before on fabrics: to cover scuffs on my black shoes, and to blacken the white stitching on black jeans (a decade after Girbaud Jeans made white stitching cool).   In the case of the jeans, the Sharpie worked great, but it washed out and needed to be redone before each wearing.
So with some experience under my belt, and no intention of laundering the carrier frequently, I picked a discrete location to try my fix.  I liked it and proceeded to recolor all of the embroidery.  It turned the glaring jewel tones into muted accents.  The gold became brown, the pinks became dark purple, and the blues turned to navy.

This:

Became That:

I will now be wearing my baby proudly!