So here is the first blog inspired by pictures. I have a feeling over the coming months you will be seeing more blogs posted that allow me to incorporate classic pictures of myself from back in the day. You are welcome.
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As I was going through pictures this past weekend I found a series of Halloween pictures from when K. and I were younger. I noticed a common theme to these pictures; all our costumes were homemade by our mom. Now I have ALWAYS remembered my Halloween costumes because of the fact that they were homemade and totally unique. I mean seriously, how could we forget wearing these costumes?!
Answer, we couldn't because they are awesome. (I think I had one of those inflatable swimming rings around my waist to give my pumpkin more volume and my sister was the cutest bunny EVER!)
I have always loved that my mom has been able to make things from scratch for us. Whether it was a Halloween costume, blanket, hat, dress, a pound puppy, outfits for our toys….she has always had this creativeness and talent for making homemade things for us. As for the costume, I am sure it would have been a lot easier for her to just go to the store and get some cheap looking Halloween costume that everyone else had, but what is the fun in that. No MY mom would spend the time (after working all day, making dinner, and cleaning,) to make us our very own, special Halloween costumes. Yes, my mom is a special kind of amazing.
This is something that you can bet I will try do for our kids someday. Ok, mom will have to help me…but I am sure between my mom, sister and myself we will have the cutest dressed kids at Halloween EVER. Well maybe not cuter than me, but pretty darn close.
Here are a few of my favorites. There are a few more on my facebook page that I uploaded this last weekend!
A full shot of my famous pumpkin costume! It is my all time favorite, so much so I wore it a couple times!!
Here I am as a masked cheerleader. Please notice the duct taped "J" on my shirt. That. Is. AWESOME!!! (I think I have a mullet.....oops)
This is me in my mom's wedding dress. Favorite part about trick or treating in Ohio. That you get to wear layers and layers of clothes under your costume. I don't think the orange sweatshirt takes away from the sheer white wedding dress AT ALL.
Me as an angel. I think I am an angel.
Kristen as Princess Jasmine. It is nearly perfect, but K. opted for the short blonde cut over the long black hair :)
K. as catwomen. No, she does not like to play for the camera at all!!
Do you have a favorite Halloween costume from when you were a child? Or a favorite Halloween story from your childhood? (wow, large enough font Jenn?!)
My favorite thing about Halloween from when I was a child is of course the homemade costumes and also when we got to carve our pumpkins! Newspaper on the table and a big 'ol mess. Perfection!
*I had this scheduled to post, but I am glad to see on other blogs there is a Halloween costume theme! I LOVE it because I adore Halloween!!!
A.W.E.S.O.M.E.! My mom made a lot of our costumes too - I'm so raiding her photos and picking them out to post on my blog! My parents were WAY into Halloween, which is why I think I like it so much. They used to run haunted trails for their church group! I still have a pair of skelleton gloves that my dad painted. They are the coolest things. He used my mom's white gloves from prom to make them, haha!
ReplyDeleteI unfortunately am not that skilled in making clothes so I've never made my kids' costumes. I know, GASP! can you believe it? My mom has made a few for them - I'll have to dig those photos out too.
This was an awesome post - LOVED IT!
Um, this is awesome. :) Your mom rocks! And, I totally laughed remembering Halloween in Ohio and the layers of long underwear (ick) we had to wear under our costumes. At least everyone was in the same boat, right?
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ReplyDeleteGreat post! I'm very jealous of your costumes. Your mom is awesome!
ReplyDeleteI've never gone trick-or-treating and never dressed up as a child. My first 'costume' (my junior year of college) involved throwing on an Army shirt and camo pants to go with my black Docs, making me - wait for it - someone in the Army.
My senior year of college I was a belly dancer.
That's all I got.
P.S. You know that my experience means that poor Baby Billy is going to have Halloween and trick-or-treating and costumes forced on him, right? He really has no choice in the matter.
ReplyDeleteThese are the best! The orange sweatshirt under the wedding dress is too funny. I think you were still trying to be the pumpkin so of course you HAD to have the orange sweatshirt :)
ReplyDeleteI had some pretty good costumes in my day. My Mom made mine too. The BEST ONE EVER was the year I was Batman. She made the whole headpiece and it was perfect! Then I just wore black sweatshirt and sweatpants with the Batman logo on my chest. So cool!
And one year I was a California raisin. I had a garbage bag that sat on top of my head and covered my body, with black tights, white gloves and my turquoise converse high tops. Plus we made a tuxedo shirt out of posterboard and that was taped to my chest. It pretty much rocked.
I fear for my kids, I don't have a ton of craftiness in me to make such things. I like to be clever with costumes, I'm just not great at the execution of them.
More photos please!
(p.s. The glasses kill me! I can't believe they made them like that. Kids today probably wear those kinds of glasses and call that their Halloween costume.
I think the bunny/pumpkin Halloween year was an unparalleled success - we wore those costumes more than any other costumes.
ReplyDeleteMy kids aren't going to have a choice; they will endure the creative side and wear homemade costumes. Whoa, Jenn! We should have a Halloween bash every year, and all the kids can get together in their costumes and go Trick-or-Treating together! :D
I LOOOOOOOOOOOOVE THIS! The pumpkin was awesome! We were talking about this in the office today and how we always had homemade costumes and were stuff like "a bum" or "an old lady" not Buzz Lightyear or SpongeBob.
ReplyDeleteGreat post!
You do, in fact, have a lovely mullet. I had one at that age too. My dad did it.... my parents divorced soon after. Coincidence? No.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite costume was when I went as Carmen Miranda. My fruit had was KILLER!!! Athena wears like 6 different costumes on Halloween while my mother in law and I parade her around for photos.
Oh my gosh, those are too fun. I honestly don't remember a single costume from when I was younger.
ReplyDeleteI am glad everyone enjoyed these and hopefully they inspire your homemade costumes...because these are pretty much as inspiring as it gets.
ReplyDeleteI think for Halloween this year everyone should tell (force) their kids to go in a homemade costume....say it is old school and totally cool. :) i.e: white sheet with two eye holes = ghost. Big orange trash bag stuffed with newspaper = pumpkin. Blue sweat pants, red dish towel stapled to the back of your shirt, duct taped S on the front of your shirt colored red with permanent marker = superman.
M: I am totally envious of your California raisin costume; I think I know what I want to go as next year, seriously the best costume ever! And they don't make glasses like that anymore, mainly because all that glass is too expensive...and if a kid wears those they are bound to get wedgies, but somehow I made them look cool.
N: Awesome, real or fake fruit? If it was me I would have totally wanted the real fruit, so what if it weighs 10 pounds....pain = great costume.
P.S. I am available to help with your future embarrassing costumes. I'll bring my sewing machine, tape, and markers.
this was hysterical! thanks for the walk down memory lane!!
ReplyDeletei had a twin brother so for the first 5 years of my life, it was basically like noah's ark around Halloween. 2 bunnies, 2 bees, kermit and miss piggy, raggedy Ann and raggedy Andy - all of it handmade. my FAVORITE was when my brother and i were mice and my dad (the artist) made himself a huge block of cheese costume. that was fun.
i miss the 80's and homemade costumes!