Happy Belated Halloween, y’all!

As always, I made the kids’ costumes this Halloween, and this year, it kind of nearly killed me. Well, the Draco Malfoy Hogwarts robe almost killed me. The knitted Draco scarf was a close second. Compared to those, the Mr. Freeze costume was about as hard as rolling out of bed.

So, here are the final results:

I gotta say, I was so proud of the costumes that I wanted to punch someone in the face. It was that rewarding.

Mr. Freeze basically consisted of black garments– I bought girls leggings and a kind of spandex-ey athletic shirt at Target– and spray painted athletic pads. I ordered four-year-old-sized knee, elbow, and shoulder pads (by the by, can you believe they make football pads for FOUR YEAR OLDS?) online and then we spray painted them silver.

knee pads, before and after silver spray paint

That’s the four-year-old, modeling the football pads before we painted them. I kind of can’t stand how cute his annoyed face is.

Side note, here, peeps. I went to Michaels to get the spray paint, and good grief, why is spray paint regulated like it’s a narcotic or something? All the paint is kept inside a locked cage. I had to get the sales guy to not only open the cage, but take out the paint– he wouldn’t let me touch any of them–and THEN, he wouldn’t even let me carry it up to the counter. He put it there and I had to ask for it when I got there. Wha?

I brainstormed with RD Husband about this oddity, and we surmised that maybe kids are huffing it? Is that a thing? Well, after doing a little interwebs research, I discovered that, as far as I can tell, the reason it’s regulated is because of… graffiti. Seriously. Tagging. I think it’s actually illegal to sell spray paint to minors in L.A. county. What the face? Do you all have this same deal in your neck o’ the woods?

Back to costumes. To finish off Mr. Freeze, we got the bald cap from the Halloween store and I ordered these crazy red-lensed glasses that were perfect off the internet. I also made him a belt with some blue vinyl from JoAnn Fabric and an old CD. We saddled him up with a gun from our arsenal and he was good to go. And in character.

Draco took much, much more time to complete. I found this amazing tutorial online on how to make a Hogwarts robe that didn’t require a pattern, so that was good. Except the tutorial skipped a few key steps, like adding a neckline. So I had to improvise, and I’m not really good enough at sewing to improvise effectively.

Anyhoo, it took me at least eight hours to sew the robe. Oy. The scarf, which I knitted, took probably about as long, but it was kind of mindless– I could do it at night while watching TV or during the four-year-old’s My Gym class. To round out those handmade pieces, I got an Oxford and black pants at Target, and found the perfect tie there, too– I couldn’t believe it. It was just sitting in the men’s section, all Slytherined out. I ordered Draco’s wand online and a patch for the Slytherin robe, and we were done.

What I loved the most is how much the kids adored their costumes. The seven-year-old wore his for the Halloween carnival at school, and afterwards we went over to some friends’ house for a playdate. Even though I brought clothes to change into, he wore the entire costume for the whole playdate, all the way up until bathtime, basically. He loved it so much he didn’t even want to take it off. It was so sweet. Also, we never saw another Mr. Freeze or a Draco Malfoy. Plenty of Batmans and Harry Potters, but no one quite like my little buggers. Yay for uniqueness!

I hope you had a fabulous Halloween. Who’s ready for Thanksgiving???

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