I made something! Actually, although the daily grind of life has inevitably taken over and impinged on my crafting time completely, I've still managed to churn out a few things hand-made, but only by the skin of my pants and certainly with no time for photos and blog posts. BUT. I'm going to try to start posting them as time allows. No longer the happy-go-lucky sewer of child costumes I used to be, no birds singing in the background, but to my surprise, I was able to whip up this Little Red Riding hood costume the night before Halloween. The only thing I missed was the little white apron because, as I announced several times to the family, I refused to sew past 10 o'clock at night! I used the same pattern I used many moons ago for the Hansel & Gretal costume  ( McCall's 6187 ) but made the pieces separately. The Gretal costume is actually a dress with a back zipper but I found it is harder to get a good fit around the bodice, the skirt didn't have much fu...

Pattern: Simplicity 3836 Fabric: Satin from JoAnns Cost: ~ $40.00 (I had enough skirt and lining fabric left over for another skirt) Size: 7 with skinnier waist Age: 10 [Shoes: $4 lucky thrift store find. Shirt: old Land's End altered for toddler pirate shirt last year. Fit perfectly! It used to be a 3/4 sleeve girl's shirt.] -----------------------------------------------  So, um, I made this for Halloween. I came up with the 50s theme for Halloween this year because my MO these days is to figure out how I can get away with the least amount of work. I can't make three new costumes for every Halloween, throw great kid parties, and everything else all the time nor do I want to. (I even convinced my kids not to have parties this year. Yay for me! Really, it's better this way. They'll be able to appreciate them more this way). My son had an Elvis Jail House Rock costume I made for him last year for dance. So I figured he could get another wear out of t...

Pattern: Simplicity 5520 Size: 3 Total fabric cost: ~ $15.00 Shoes: Walmart mud boots $15.00 [Pattern does not include pants, sparkly black leggings size 4-5 girls, Walmart $4.97] ----------------------------------- This year's Halloween costumes were pretty much decided on in the spring when I made a Renaissance princess costume for Monkey Pants school festival. The pattern I bought, Simplicity 5520 , had a costume for a knight and a warrior, which I figured would work out just great for the two little brothers. I even bought all the fabrics for the other two costumes and they've been waiting for me to make them all this time. However, last month, I was at Costco and they had a slew of pretty fantastic costumes for about $24. There were two different knight costumes and I folded and bought one for my older son. I was planning for his birthday at the time, and this seemed like an excellently intelligent choice which would save my time, energy and sanity. Right? Ok,...

Crafting has been slow the past few months and I must admit I searched high and low for Hansel and Gretel costumes online and couldn't find any so alas, I was forced to make them myself. Yes, it's true I didn't want to do it. But here they are, and of course after they were done I was so glad I made them myself. I was a little concerned no one would be able to tell who they were dressed up as, but everyone recognized them as Hansel and Gretel right away. I used M6187 Misses'/Children's/Girls' Storybook Costumes pattern from McCall's view D. Can I just say how ridiculous the retail price is on these patterns now a days! $18.95! I did get at the "normal" 40% off price at the local chain sewing store, but that is still $11.37. Two days later, all McCall's patterns were on sale for $1.00 but of course this one was gone in the kid's sizes. I did buy the misses size at the dollar price in case I decided to make myself a costume late...

Trying to decide what to dress up the kids as this year didn't come to me very quickly. I certainly didn't plan to slave for hours over costumes that would probably only be worn once and likely be stained with sticky stuff, mangled, and who knows what. After shooting down the idea of Batman (for my 4 year old girl) and Robin (for my 1 year old boy), I decided to go back to basics and I couldn't resist this costume idea from MarthaStewart.com I convinced myself that I didn't really have to sew anything and it didn't really look too hard. And it wasn't. I did end up having to make the pilot's cap which could easily be found here due to time and money constraints. I'm not too fond of making up my own patterns for things so I searched high and low for a free pattern download for this very basic cap and came up with nothing. But somehow, I managed to make my own pattern in two different sizes even. And, it came out great (aside from the dreaded trip to J...