Cocoa Pie: Costumes of Halloween Past (and Present!)

In honor of a fun Halloween yesterday, I thought I would do a post of the costumes I have made in the past.

I have always loved dressing up for Halloween. I have been making my own costumes since I was a teenager.

I remember one year I was a cat and made my own cat ears out of poster board and crepe paper and a tail out of an old pair of black nylons. I used lipstick to make my nose pink, and it didn't come all the way off. I had a pink nose for the whole weekend.

Another year, I altered a long, (really lovely) hippy dress of my moms from the 70's into a Shakespearean gown. One year a was a Greek Goddess with a handmade laurel wreath in my hair made from a wire coat hanger and tin-foil leaves that I hand cut and glued on, one at a time.

I made a Princess Leia costume one year out of an old bed sheet, cardboard (for the belt) and some cheap silver lame fabric. That as the first time I ever covered buttons in fabric. I even dyed my blonde hair brown with some "wash-out" hair dye that didn't fully wash out for quite a few days.

And one time, I made a super girl costume with no sewing machine! I was at college and didn't have access to a sewing machine. I made the costume out of a long sleeved white t-shirt dyed blue, some felt Superman emblems that I cut out and glued together by hand, and some red costume satin that I made the skirt and cape out of with only a needle and thread and some stitch witchery.

Unfortunately, and don't ask me why, but I have almost no pictures from my Halloween Past!

Then I went through a phase where I didn't really have a reason to dress up. So I didn't.

Once I had kids however, that changed, and I could embrace my love for dress-up once more! And this time, I took pictures.

Here are a few of the Halloween costumes I have made in more recent years:

Angel and her Devils -2009

This was the twins first Halloween (2009). I bought the red shirts and sweat pants, and made the devil hats and tails out of red cotton and black satin.

I also made my angel costume, but unfortunately, this is the only picture I have of it, so you can;t see the whole thing. It was a semi-sheer white fabric top with flowing sleeves, and a white, silver glittered satin skirt underneath. I made the ties out of a star-patterned, silver lame-type fabric.

Below are the boys "official" Halloween pics from that year. You can see the devil tail in the second one:

The following year (2010) I had just given birth to my third son, so I didn't make any costumes, although I did have to alter their store-bought ones, since they were a little too big.

2011 my boys were obsessed with pirates. I decided to make their pirate costumes, rather than buy them. Then I got the brilliant idea to make my youngest son a parrot:

Pirate A & Baby Parrot - 2011

(This is the best photo I have of a pirate and the parrot together. My boys were barely one and not-quite three at the time, so rounding them up for a group photo was pretty much impossible!)

THIS year (2012), my boys all wanted to be Superheroes. Bummer. I'm not even going to bother making Superhero costumes when you can get cool(cheap!) ones at the store. However, that didn't stop me from some Halloween sewing!

My boys decided I was going to be a witch. I figured, I will probably be a witch more than once more in my life, as it is a pretty great go-to costume, however uninspired it may seem. So I decided to make a good, sturdy basic costume that will last me forever.

(You can read about the actual construction of the dress HERE )

The (Not-So) Wicked Witch - 2012