Halloween 2013!!!

Tomorrow I leave for Houston to attend the International Quilt Festival (woo hoo!!!!!!), so I have to write my annual Halloween post a bit early. While I am bummed I won't be at home to share in the festivities with my family, I am at the same time super excited to have the opportunity to go to Festival this year (woo hoo!!!!!!!).

In recent months, the hotness at our house has been a video game called Guacamelee! from Drinkbox Studios. My boys absolutely love this game. And truly, it is pretty darn awesome-- the art, the music (seriously, the music is incredible; we even bought the soundtrack!), the story, the mechanics, the different endings... way cool! So it was no surprise that when it came time to choose their costumes, Big Bear and Little Bear both wanted to be characters from the game. Big Bear wanted to be a yellow skeleton (because they're super fast!). Little Bear wanted to be a green skeleton (because they're green!).

I started by perusing eBay. There I found sombreros of appropriate hues (thank you, noveltwholesale!), as well as some gently used glow-in-the-dark skeleton pajamas. Then I got to work on the rest.

I ended up making ponchos, tattered pants, and red sashes. I didn't use a pattern for the ponchos or sashes and just kind of winged it. For the pants, I used Kwik Sew pajama patterns, 3126 (toddler sizes; I made a T3) and 3604 (boys & girls sizes; I made a Medium).

Above is a picture of the green skeleton from the game next to Little Bear's rendition.

The ponchos are made of fleece, including the appliqued stripes. I decided on fleece because Halloween night around here is typically cold (and wet... but, as always, we are crossing our fingers for a dry evening!). The green poncho was a bit of a challenge, as there were angles involved. It made me glad that it was a small size as I could lay the whole thing out on the table.

The yellow poncho was much more straightforward. I think it turned out pretty darn close to the look of the in-game version, which you can see in the image above. Since the sombreros came with ball trim on them, I decided to add some to the ponchos as well, to help tie the look together.

My husband was concerned that the costumes be as "cosplay accurate" as possible. So I made the pants and sash. But I didn't have it in me to make shirts too... I mean, they'd just be completely covered up by the ponchos anyway, right? I feel a bit like a slacker, but really, the boys are both happy, and that's what really counts.

When they put on their costumes, they immediately got into character and were very excited to show off all of their skeleton moves.

What a pair!

Wishing you a safe and happy Halloween!!!