Halloween 2018

Our first Halloween as a family of four! This year, R was 2 and A was 9 months. My original thought was that the boys would be hobbits, and C and I would be elves. As Halloween got closer, however, that became slightly daunting. The boys' costumes wouldn't be hard - I could thrift all but their cloaks - but I would have to make elven outfits for myself and C, and the fabric alone would not be cheap. After thinking about it for a while, I decided to go with characters R would recognize: Daniel Tiger and family!

I toyed with A dressing up as O the Owl or Prince Wednesday, but in the end decided to dress him as Daniel's stuff tiger, Tigey.

After a thorough googling, I found some great instructions on how to make a Daniel Tiger hat. Unfortunately, the download link for the pattern didn't work, so I had to make up my own pattern. I found a free fleece hat pattern by Crafty Gemini that came in both adult and kid sizes, and added ears, stripes, eyes, and a nose. Probably the hardest part was remembering to attach the ears before sewing the hat together! For the mouth lines and the eyelashes on Mom Tiger, I used black fabric paint.

For R's sweater, I asked my mom to knit him a zip up red hoodie, which she did in record time! It even has the white ties and pockets. The pants proved a challenge - not only is mustard yellow a difficult color to find in toddler pants (boys OR girls), but also I had to hand-stitch the stripes on.

For Tigey's costume, I decided instead of making a sleeper like I did with the dinosaur costume, it would be much easier to buy the sleeper and add stripes. However, I didn't anticipate how difficult it would be to find a plain blue sleeper! Finally, I found this one (with hood and ears already attached!) at a thrift store.

Again, I hand stitched on all the stripes (except the ones on the hood, as I could fit the hood over my machine. 

C was worried that no one would recognize us, but there were several parents, grandparents, and kids at our church's Fall Festival who immediately said "Daniel Tiger!" And even R, when he looked in the mirror, said "Dan Tigrrrr!"

A successful Halloween!