Catching Up

So I am apparently really terrible at keeping up with the blog. :/ I read my Bible every day, do the laundry nearly every day, check facebook every day, but for whatever reason, I can't even check the blog once a quarter.

Anyway, I've become (along with anyone else who has been invited) addicted to pinterest. I want to pin everything, make everything, travel everywhere, design my own dream home, live in some impossible-to-maintain garden, do crazy crafts with the kids, sew everything (and I don't even own a sewing maching). But I got to thinking, "hey, I've got a few good ideas, too!" There are two things I am good at. I love to plan a great theme  party from invitation down to the last party favor detail. And for whatever reason, we strive to make awesome family themed Halloween costumes, which is weird because neither of our families celebrated Halloween or went to the church alternative or any of that. But it's become this awesome opportunity to do something together with our kids that most parents wouldn't do. We dress up WITH them.

Two years ago, my oldest son was very much into Popeye, thanks to his daddy. So, for the most part we made our own costumes. We did buy Swee Pea's, but I'm sure if you know how to sew you could DIY...but I am not that crafty. It was felt that came to a point at the feet, and had a little piece of velcro in the back. But my husband and I made little Popeye's shirt, with forearms and all.

For Popeye's shirt, we took a black t-shirt, one size larger than what my son would normally wear, and first folded it vertically off center in the front, then sewed it to make it look like a button down shirt. We sewed three oversized gold buttons. I used stitch witch (or whatever iron-on adhesive) to put on the bright blue 2" ribbon sleeves, with the ends meeting under the arm. We took a heavier red material and sewed it into a square collar on the back, and again used stitch with to attach the black grosgain ribbon.

I was content with just drawing anchor tattoos directly on my sons arms, but my husband wasn't having that. He went to the dollar store for womens white tights, and sewed them double thick, and used cotton batting to stuff the forearms, and used permanent marker to ink him. My husband even went as far as "whittling" him a somewhat functional pipe that whistles.

His treat bag was made to look like a can of spinach,  made from felt and cotton, with an iron-on transfer of an actual spinach can label (the one that advertises Popeye on it), with pieces of green felt loosely coming out of the top like spinach. We did discover that the bag really needs a sturdier handle...the felt stretches very easily.

For Olive Oyl, I found a black stretchy skirt at Ross or some discount clothing store, and added a piece of yellow grogain ribbon, again with stitch witch, about 4 inches from the bottom. I also took a long sleeve red t-shirt from Old Navy (usually around $8) and took round velcro from the craft store to adhere a cotton eyelet lace trim around the collar, which later I removed and still wear the shirt!

For my husband, I looked in thrift stores for those yellow pants, but found them on ebay. Why Ralph Lauren ever decided men needed yellow corduroy pants, I'll never know! He already owned a black polo, and I purchased the teal ribbon long enough to tie in a belt. And both of the sailor/captains hats were found on ebay for dirt cheap. I think $2 for the Popeye sailor hat, and maybe $7 for the captains hat.

I do have to give my husband props for wearing the outfit. He was more than a trooper about it...he actually was getting irritated with me if I wasn't make the costumes absolutely authentic to the original cartoon. We received so many compliments and people asking us where we got the costumes, and were completely blown away when we said we made them. What a novel idea...to make your costumes as a family! Didn't people used to do that all the time before all of these party and Halloween stores started popping up?

I know this wasn't an actual tutorial with step-by-step instructions, but trust me, I am not crafty in the slightest...and look what I was able to do with a little help!