Thursday 1 November 2012

Spooky

Yesterday was the Halloween, which according to my children is the most important day of the year. We were woken up to declarations of . . . "I can't believe it's actually Halloween . . . T O D A Y!"

The morning was full of costume dramas. Firstly Pia decided she wanted to be a flamingo. This one stumped me a bit, until I found this incredible outfit on a blog. Sadly I was so totally last minute, my dreams of making her a proper hat with feathers and a beautiful winged cape ended up instead in a last-minute panic-fuelled stuffed flamingo headband, using left-over linen and fabric pens and attached to a sequin headband.


Middle wanted to be a spooky doll, so we scoured her drawers for the spookiest skirt and top, found some orange hair that matched her huge skirt (both given to her by my sister last Christmas) and finished it off with an apron I'd sewed from an old pillow case ages ago. I painted her face with orange cheeks, purple eyes, black stitches and heart lips.  




Nearly-Teen isn't always enthusiastic about dressing up, and spent most of the morning shrugging his shoulders at all our suggestions, until he decided on Sherlock Holmes. We didn't have a cape or a hat though, so while he went on a mission to the fancy dress shop to find a hat, I sewed him a cape.

He came back with a trilby.

So then I had to quickly sew him a hat too, which turned out to be a bit too small. The deerstalker pattern I used was great though, and I'd definitely make him another one, I think I'd just enlarge all the pieces by about 20%. I used this pattern for the cape, but as I only had a bit of grey fabric left, I had to adjust it quite a bit and make it much smaller.


It was all a total manic rush because I am tragically far too last-minute, but we managed to get to the party only forty minutes after it started. (The party was brilliant by the way, and the fabulous Monique had even made delicious homemade veggie burgers especially for us non-meat-eaters, and lots of warming mulled wine.)

This was our kiddie's second Halloween party in a week. For the last one (which had a crazy, crazy number of children running wild) we made these ghosty cupcakes. The cake bit is basically a chocolate fairycake mix and the top is made from vegetarian marshmallow. A few ghosts suffered in transit, falling victim to Pia's hat swinging in the back of the car, but most arrived unharmed.




Back to yesterday though, which ended with trick or treating in the rain followed by Witch Zelda's Birthday Cake as a bedtime story. If you haven't seen this book, it's incredible. It's shaped like a pumpkin, and has pop-out, pull-out, lift-up flaps galore. And Eva Tatcheva's illustrations are utterly fabulous.






So that was Halloween. Spooky, a bit manic, but wonderful.

9 comments:

  1. Sherlock, a doll and a flamingo... our kids really did go all out to win this year's halloween scare awards! Looked brilliant though and not last-minute.

    I do wish there were still some spooky cakes left though!

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    1. Hmmm... possibly not the scariest ever costumes. But I heard there had been a strange incident, and a zombie doll carrying a pink flamingo had been seen fleeing the scene. Naturally this required investigating by a teenage detective and his handlebar moustache. See, we built a Halloween scene and backstory. Did you miss that?

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  2. All looks wonderful, you shouldn't have mentioned all the last-minute-hat-too-small-stuff, it all looks completely intentional :)

    That book looks so up my street it's practically parked on the front lawn. Off to find a copy NOW!

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    1. PS. The comment below was meant to be a reply to you. Pressed the wrong button. Oops!

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  3. Did I say last-minute? I meant planned and deliberate. Did you all have a fun Halloween?

    PS. I think you'll love that book. Hope so!

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  4. OH Wow! Camilla you are wonder mum! They all look amazing even if it was last minute! I would LOVE to have that orange wig and makeup combo for next year! - my efforts were very last minute too, and to top that my bloody camera stopped working! It was all a bit arse this year.. must try harder! xx

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    1. I'm really not, Lou! It never goes how you imagine it. I had such plans. And it didn't involve 'Monster House' being stuck in the DVD player and me panic sewing!

      Sorry about your camera. What a pain. Is it fixed now?

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  5. They look amazing, you did an awesome job!!!
    Have a happy weekend!!
    xx

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    1. Thank you, Mariela. It was brilliant. I love that my children still want to dress up and pretend x

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