Holidaze: The Cowboy and the Peacock

My favorite holiday of the year is Halloween. I'm the kind of nut that starts planning costumes on November 1st for the next year. I am all about dressing up, decorations and Halloween festivities.  Having kids has only intensified my Halloween craziness because I have adorable little ones to dress up and an excuse to get free candy from my neighbors. Score!

I purchased Halloween costumes for the boy kiddo the first few years, but when the girl kiddo was born I really got swept into taking the DIY route. I thought I would share our costumes from the last couple of years over the next couple of weeks. Maybe one of these ideas will inspire you.

 In 2011, I made the girl kiddo's peacock Halloween costume.  I wasn't able to get the best pictures, but trust me, it was adorbs!  The boy kiddo actually selected what he wanted his little sis to dress up as. The costume was easy peasy to make and required little crafting skills.  As long as you can use a hot glue gun and scissors, this is a cinch to pull off. Unfortunately since this was in 2011, I didn't bother to take progress pictures because this post wasn't even on my agenda, but I will do the best I can to explain how I put the outfit together.

Peacock "Feathers" - I free handed a peacock feather template on cardboard.  I drew a large tear drop shape, a medium tear drop shape and a small tear drop shape. I traced and cut out felt tear drop shapes using the large shape on brown felt, the medium shape on green felt and the small shape on blue felt. I cut out about 21 of each.  I then used the handy hot glue gun and assembled the feathers by layering the large, medium and small shapes on top of each other to form a single feather.  I then created a triangular shape by gluing rows of feathers together. Bottom row was 6 feathers, next row 5, next row 4, next row 3, next row 2 and then the top row consisted of 1 feather.  I used a tiny bit of hot glue to secure each feather to one another horizontally and then to attach the rows vertically.  I then cut 6" of 1 inch color coordinating ribbon and glued the middle of the ribbon to the top (row 1) feather.

Peacock Skirt - I used one of the many "no sew tulle skirt" tutorials that can be found on Pinterest.  I used a combination of teal, green and gold tulle for the skirt and went for the long and full look.  The short version is that I measure 1" of white elastic purchased from the craft store around girl kiddo, cut and hot glued. I cut out strips of tulle in double the length of what I wanted the skirt to be. I slipped the elastic over my leg up past my knee, sat in front of the tv and spent an hour tying tulle strips around the elastic band. Presto! I alternated colors in fours - 4 strips of blue, 4 strips of green and 4 strips of gold until all of the elastic was covered.  I then attached the above feathers to the back of the skirt by using the ribbon tie I hot glued on.

Headband - I purchased 1/2" black elastic, black felt, a small bundle of peacock feathers and a "jewel" from the craft store. I cut black elastic to fit girl kiddo's head and secured with hot glue. I cut three individual feathers of the stem I purchased for the headband.  I cut a rectangular shape from the black felt that was approximately 3" x 1" and arranged the three feathers as shown in the picture and secured with hot glue. I also secured the jewel to the middle of the feather arrangement with hot glue. Done!

Body Suit - I wasn't able to find a teal onesie, so I purchased a plain white onesie as well as plain white tights and threw them in with some teal dye to create the body suit. To complete the look I threw on some baby moccasins and there you have it! Costume completed.

The boy kiddo decided to be a cowboy that year and not only did his costume require NO crafty skills, but half the outfit was free since I was able to utilize items we already had! To put together this adorable cowboy look I simply went to boy kiddo's closet and pulled a pair of jeans, a plaid shirt and a cowboy hat we had purchased over the summer during a trip to a western themed amusement park. I ordered a pair of cowboy boots from Payless (with a 20% off coupon!) and snagged a blue paisley handkerchief from Walmart.  I initially had a little trouble finding a fake gun and holster set, but eventually stumbled upon an inexpensive set at a separate trip to Walmart. 

And there you have it - instant cowboy adorableness and minimal work for mama! What a win-win!