Cardboardy goodness

These are all so lame (and scattered throughout the house) that I can't even bear to post pictures. Last year, I got excited about a project that required vast quantities of cardboard. (Then school took over my life, and I haven't yet had the two or three days it will take to actually get the project done.) Craigslist led me to a car windshield dealer who had tons of weird cardboard, so now my garage attic has a good three-foot stack of sheets (about 2' x 4') with a weird loop cut out in the middle.

We've been using this cardboard for EV.ERY. THING. One day we made a blue Power Ranger mask (Marks A Lot and elastic). One day we made actually really cool guitars (the cardboard is corrugated on one side, so a strip of that glued to the front of the guitar looks just like guitar strings). We've made houses and roads and weapons from this stuff.

Haven't really made a dent in the pile, either.

Darth Vader amigurumi

The latest addition to my Star Wars Crochet family.

A bit closer on his chestplate and belt:

I'm holding him for size perspective, but putting him next to a ruler probably would have been more effective.

Overall, I'm pleased with how he turned out. The chestplate and belt details were a lot harder to embroider than I expected, and eventually I just gave up and settled for this. But the helmet turned out well, and I'm happy enough with the face. I kept notes this time, so I could do another one a little bit better if I want to. For example, the head ought to be another round or two taller, because the helmet needs to sit a bit higher off the shoulders. And I'm pleased with the cape, too.

R2D2 costume

Tom wanted to be Darth Vader and Anakin this Halloween, so we (I) decided Asher would be R2D2. Asher actually loved the idea, once he understood what I was talking about. We got the Darth Vader costume on sale at TJMaxx, and Tom's Nana provided the Anakin costume (which is actually what inspired Tom to be Anakin ... she'd bought it just as a dress-up thing).

But no way was I going to spend $30 for a toddler R2D2 costume.

First I needed a torso. I used his winter coat to make a sort of tank-top pattern, figuring that it would have to be able to fit over the coat in case we encountered a typical Minnesota Halloween. I made the torso out of white fleece.

The arms were also white fleece. I measured from the top of his shoulder to his wrist for height, then measured around his upper bicep and around his wrist for width. The photo below is sideways -- imagine his shoulder at the right, and his wrist at the left. It needs that funny two-humped curve for the shoulder. I fitted that middle section together and sewed it to create a curve to fit up and around the top of the shoulder.

A Velcro tab held the top of the arm to the torso at the shoulder, and some elastic held the forearm together with a toggle (I could never get Asher to hold still for a fitting, so I really had no idea how much elastic to use). You can see it fairly well below:

The hat was some stretchy silver stuff with a white fleece lining. By the time I got to the head, though, I was all out of wine and it was about midnight. So I just hot-glued on the details.

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.

Tom's birthday cake

Karyn's cake kicked ass!

$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.