R2D2 shirt

I got fan mail! Sort of. I got a lovely comment last year about an R2D2 costume I made for my son Asher, but I didn't realize it until like May because I had somehow inactivated "notify me of comments" or whatever that is called.

I would have loved to have made a similar costume for the woman's son, but various things are keeping me from that. In any case, I present the simplest thing EVER: The R2D2 shirt. Made from a plain white T (thank you, Michaels -- or is it Michael's?) and fabric markers.

My boys both want one now. Damn it! I need to hide these things better!

Happy Halloween. So tasteless

I was invited to a party where I KNEW everyone would have an incredible costume. Boy howdy. One guy arrived as one of the Dick in a Box guys. Unbelievable. "Well, if you can't be incredible," I told myself, "just be mean."

I present Mount Lushmore.

Lindsay Lohan, (my son standing in for me), Gary Busey, and Amy Winehouse.

Halloween jellyfish costume

Make Magazine blog had a link to a guy's site. He'd made a jellyfish costume by bolting a skateboarding helmet to a very large plastic basin, then attached battery-powered LED rope lights. It was incredible.

And it sounded like a lot of work. So I went the lo-cal way -- I found 100 glowstick bracelets on eBay for $7, and got a plastic bowl that fit my head at the dollar store.

This is how it looked as I was setting it up. To make the bowl light up, I would snap several glowsticks, then hook them together with the included connectors. Then I spiraled it up and taped it into the bowl. The tentacles were just taped to the edges.



The bracelets were flexible when bent, but they weren't loosey goosey, which probably would have been much more comfortable, because the tentacles kept hitting my shoulders.

To keep the bowl on my head, I used packing tape to attach a circle of elastic in the middle. To put it on, I would pull the elastic apart and slide it onto my head. The elastic kept it more or less in place. After about 3 hours, the elastic had stretched out enough that it wasn't really secure on my head anymore. If I reuse it, I'll just reduce the diameter of that elastic loop.

This is how it looked in the dark, as modeled by my not-quite-able-to-hold-still toddler. It actually turned out really well.

And your little ruby slippers, too

My friend Karen loves the Wizard of Oz even more than I love Star Wars. For real. When Tom was born, she sent a very fancy edition of the book, referring to it in the enclosed note as "a service I provide for all new babies." I love her.

Anyhoo. Sometimes I think Karen decided to become a mother just so she would have someone to dress as Dorothy or the Tin Man. Last Halloween she had the BEST Dorothy costume EVER for her daughter (about 18 months old). But the red sparkly shoes at Target only started one size above her size. Tragedy! So I made these. They have a satin lining. No pattern, so I was delighted with how they turned out, and Karen said they fit perfectly. They actually looked much better in person, because the flash completely washes out the sparkliness.

$1.79 Stormtrooper mask

Tom really wanted a stormtrooper mask. Can't find them anywhere ... at least, not for under $40. Maybe when it gets closer to Halloween, but not in August, which is when we made this.

I found a photo of a stormtrooper helmet, then printed it out the size I wanted it. I used white foam (that Foamies stuff -- you get a big sheet of it for $.79 -- it's 2 or 3 mm thick) to make the background piece, then cut another to make the detail at the bottom and the forehead part. I used scrap black foam that I happened to have to make the black details. For the eyes, Tom and I went to a dollar store and got a pair of sunglasses. I trimmed one lens, to make it fit the pattern. If I had to do it over, I would have gotten the sunglasses first, then made the eye part of the pattern to accommodate the lenses. It's all hot-glued together.

There are two slits in the black nose piece because Tom specifically requested "breathing holes."

Then the back was just a scrap of elastic and two toggles. I reinforced the slot with another little square of foam, because this stuff isn't all that durable by itself.

The toggles let it be adjustable (it's got to be a bit more snug for Asher to have a turn). Plus, it's hard as hell to size an elastic headband on an active kid, so I didn't want to have to sew it.