How do you like our new look?

e hope your Halloween was very fun and very sugar coated! I'm a bit tired from sitting at the sewing machine for hours on end and so of course, I come here to the computer to sit and blog about it! Well, thanks to all of you who voted in our poll for this year's Halloween costume theme ideas. The winner of the poll (even early on) was the Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory theme and I am so glad we did it! It was colorful, it wasn't creepy, it was challenging, it was quite the set-up! All costumes were made by me, some done using a pattern, and some by a little lucky guesswork. We had some special effects too so be sure to view the video at the end! Thanks to my mom who was my first teacher at the sewing machine long age, my little Aedan for being a good sport even though I was busy sewing and he was sick (twice) in this past two weeks, and to Neal for putting up with the messes and craziness of it all. And thanks to Asher for lending his handsome shoes.

Aedan, the Oompa Loompa has his dinner. I get a kick out of his little pointy pants and his white eyebrows.

Don't you just love the contrast in height here? Works well for the characters.

The Wonka clan with Neal as Willy Wonka, me as Violet Beauregarde (pre blueberry stage and not so blue in the face as I wanted) and Aedan as our fun little Oompa Loompa. Really, all during the time when sewing the costumes, I had the Oompa Loompa song running through my head. It better wear off soon.

Getting pretty big now and loving that Wonka Bar. Really, I get kind of sick seeing these pictures of me. Makes me want to hit the gym or the Wii Fit tomorrow... Not the most slimming look for me this year!

Not so impressive bubble gum skills but it seemed to amaze Aedan.

At the car for the Trunk or Treat our church building parking lot. Aedan didn't quite understand the whole "Say 'Trick-or-Treat'", "Now say 'Thank You'", and "Put the candy in the bag so you can eat it later". I kind of felt like I was dragging him from car to car and he was very shy. Oh well, we didn't need all that candy anyway. I think he still had fun.

Neal's pumpkin and my pumpkin. The squirrels ate Aedan's ghost pumpkin and looks like they took some nibbles out of mine around the eyes. Aedan felt kind of sad about his pumpkin but then after talking to him he felt glad that now the squirrels had something to eat.

Accessorizing. Aedan's treat mini tote with iron on transfer and some real (yes real) chocolate bars re-wrapped with a computer printed Wonka Bar label (Neal did these). I slipped in my golden ticket too...

Aedan's setup. I modified a basic shirt/pants pattern and had to do a little fabric paint job on the collar, sleeve, and tights to make it work. This was taken post Halloween events so don't mind the chocolate stains all over...

For Violet's clothes it didn't matter what I did, it needed to be big and blue. I did this without a pattern as I don't think you can get patterns for clothes this big. I may be wrong.

And look ma, I lost 500 lbs on the Wonka Diet System!! The diet consisted of continual gum chewing excercises and a steady intake of chocolate. It worked for me! Try it today! :)

Becoming Violet was quite a challenge. I thought for a good two months on how to achieve the blueberriness and it wasn't until last week that I started researching inflatable costumes to wear underneath some clothing. Even then it was difficult to find a spherical one. Tonight people kept wanting to look under my shirt (I beg your pardon!) and so I thought I'd show you what the suit looks like. It has a battery powered fan that inflates continuously (drained 4 AAs in 1 hour!) and it really is comfortable to have your own person ventilation system going on under all those clothes... if I could get away with that in everyday wear I would... FYI I purchased this on ebay.

Wonka needed a purple jacket. For the amount I would have spent on a Joker costume to get a purple jacket, I could make one of much better quality. The jacket was a challenge of my patience but I'm happy with the result. It is fully lined too - I hate lined patterns because it takes too much thought to try to alter it to do without the lining so I'm forced to line it. Oh well, it is a sweet jacket and who knows, Neal can be the Joker or Mad Hatter someday too. I made the hat too, out of poster board, both soft and stiff felt, ribbon, and glue glue glue.

Someone asked how I do it all with having Aedan around. Well, a lot is done at night and since my table for crafting is in Aedan's room, I had to plant it elsewhere. This was a long time feature in the front of our family room. Other than that, I did most of it at night or during naps. We did watch both Willy Wonka/Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movies to keep us entertained.

Here's the video of my transition to blueberry stage. When I first tested out my costume and after watching the movies, Aedan was watching me expand and then started to cry because he thought I was really blowing up. But then I had him kick me around in the soccer ball suit and then he thought it was funny!
We had fun with the costumes. Now we'll have fun catching up on sleep!