Halloween Retrospective

This is the first year since my two daughters were born that they are not wearing a mama-made costume. I've been dreading this day. Halloween is a favorite holiday around the Young household and I've always truly enjoyed not only the designing and sewing of costumes, but the photoshoot and editing that comes with it. I've been lucky that up until now, my girls have gotten as much into it as I have, indulging me with all my crazy over-the-top ideas. So, since I'm feeling a bit nostalgic, I thought I'd share some of my favorite creations through the years... (I'll include links to patterns for those that used them).

2009

Sophie was a witch. I used the Penny pattern (or what would eventually become the Penny pattern, as it had not been released yet), lengthened to the floor and roughly cut the bottom hem into peaks. All other accessories were purchased.

Sydney was a fairy. I used what eventually because the Bubble Dress from Sewing MODKID Style and added a faux corseted panel in the front (the ribbons were just sewn onto the fabric in a criss-cross fashion). Wings and other accessories were purchased.

2014

Sydney was Wednesday Addams. I used the Avery pattern for her dress and I modified it as shown at the bottom of this post. I made a Potty Girl from my Playdate collection and a matching dress, free printable pattern found here. Sydney and I went to two local cemeteries to shoot these pictures. One of them had graves as old as the 1700's. See more photos and details here.

Sophie was a zombie. I used the Melanie Misses pattern to make her dress. Lots of details including the fabrics are found here. We shot these pictures just down the street from our house in front of an abandoned barn.

We even did a little movie to celebrate the occasion...

2015

Sophie was the most perfect "Dorothy" from Wizard of Oz along with her own "Toto" (er... our Miniature Schnauzer, Duke). I used the Avery pattern for the blouse and the pinafore dress was self-drafted. But if you want to learn all the details, look here.

Sydney was a "Broken Little Red Riding Hood Doll" (her own costume mash-up idea after not being able to decide between "Broken Doll" and "Little Red Riding Hood").  I used the Charlotte pattern for her dress. The Hooded Cape tutorial can be found in my newest book, Patternless Sewing Mod Style. If you're interested in learning how we did the make-up (including full product details), check out this post.

2016

Sydney was "Eleven" from the Netflix series "Stranger Things". I used the Elle pattern for the dress. We used tempera paints to paint in the green and yellow stripes on plain white crew socks because we could not find the right color combination anywhere! All other accessories were purchased. Read all the details here.

Sophie did not want to dress up in 2016, so I got in the game and dressed up as Joyce Byers to go along with the Stranger Things theme. Sydney and I attended a costume contest at a local Record Store and we won! :)

I hope these have provided some inspiration for upcoming costumes. I am still hopeful that at least one of them will ask me to make something for them between now and then... I have been known to pull all-nighters before for a great costume!

Halloween 2016 - "Stranger Things" style

My family and I started watching the extremely popular show, Stranger Things, one Friday night last month and by Saturday afternoon, we had completed the series. My youngest daughter, Sydney, and I proceeded to watch it again in its entirety a couple days later because we were so hooked and wanted to catch things we may have missed the first time around... yes, it's that addictive!

So, it's no surprise to me that for this year's Halloween, Sydney wanted to be Eleven. Not only is she her favorite character in the show, but she has a very distinctive look that I knew we could replicate with a little bit of effort from both of our parts. For those of you who are not familiar with our Halloween series, here was Sydney's costume from last year, and the one from the year before that. And even her big sister, Sophie, has gotten into the Halloween action. Yes, I guess you can say we take Halloween seriously in the Young household. And it also doesn't hurt that I am a sewing pattern designer and I LOVE a good challenge!

I set out to design and sew a dress that would be as close of a replica to the original Eleven wore as I could. Upon completion, Sydney and I hit the stores to try to find all the accessories:

• White Converse high-tops: we got those at Von Maur
• White crew socks with green-yellow-green stripes: We never found those, so we got plain white ones and some tempera paints at Walmart, and Sydney painted on the stripes.
• Blonde wig: Party City
• Fake Blood: Party City
• Eggos: Walmart

Then the fun began...

In the above photo, believe it or not, we only had 1 box of Eggos to work with. So, since we wanted to replicate the scene in which Eleven is eating *all the Eggos* after she steals the boxes from the grocery store, I shot the first picture of Sydney with the box in her right arm, then she had to sit very still with her arms and legs in the same position, while I moved the box to different locations around her and ran back to my camera to reshoot the photo. Later on, I imported all the separate photos into Photoshop and merged them together. Yes, I know, in hindsight it would've been much easier to run back to the store and buy more Eggos, but, like I mentioned, I love a good challenge!

It took several shots to get her expression just right in the photo above. Either she was too angry-looking or half smiling in most of them. I told her she had to look like she was really concentrating on something. This was supposed to replicate the scene in which they are walking towards the "portal" and Eleven is messing with the compasses.

In the above photo, she is replicating the scene in which she breaks up a fight between Mike and Lucas by throwing Lucas across the junk yard with her mind powers. This was the look on Eleven's face after she realized what she did.

Just another Eggo photo because those were fun to shoot, and Sydney was really enjoying eating all the Eggos.

And lastly, we shot this one to replicate the scene in which Eleven wipes the blood off her nose after she makes Troy wet his pants with her awesome mind powers. Yes, I know, this would've been better shot at a school with bleachers behind us.

Hope you all enjoyed our newest Halloween creation. Want to steal this look? Get the PDF pattern here.

There’s no place like home!

Happy Halloween, everyone! Less than a week ago (last Sunday, to be exact) my oldest daughter, Sophie (13) told me she wanted to go to this Downtown Trick-or-Treat event on Friday because some of her friends from school were going to be there. And, she would need a costume for it. Prior to that, she had expressed no interest whatsoever in dressing up for Halloween. I asked her what she wanted to be, and she said “Dorothy” without hesitation (I’m guessing they must've discussed this at school). She then added, “But you don’t have to make me a costume. I can just get one at the Halloween store.” On Monday night, after her Ballet class, we headed to the Halloween store up the street. The Junior sizes were way too small for her (she is 5’ 6”) and the women’s sizes were way to “sexy” for her. Seriously, they had plunging necklines, bustier-style tops and micro-mini skirts. That is NOT what she had in mind and I would never allow her to go out of the house wearing something like that... Halloween or not! So, she turned to me and said, “Can you just make me one?”

I had literally 3 days to make something, including finding all the right fabrics and accessories. Luckily, JoAnns had the perfect blue check for the dress and solid white for the shirt. I found some inexpensive shoe covers ($6.99) at Party City that slipped right over her ballet flats, and the blue ribbons for her hair I found in my own stash. But, I still had to figure out how to make the costume.





I used my own Avery pattern (available in both PDF and paper formats) View B for the shirt. Yes, this pattern comes only up to size 10, so I had to grade it up to a 14. Since the dress style is drop-waist, the length of the bodice was actually perfect length for a shirt. I wanted it to close at the back, to make it more authentic, so luckily Courtney had recently shared a tutorial for how to do a back closure on the Avery... perfect! The only other modifications I made to it was to add sleeve cuffs instead of elastic to the bubble sleeves and add a straight neck band instead of the Peter Pan collar to the bodice. Both of those were super easy mods!



The dress was another story. I was running out of time and didn’t have time to research patterns for it. So, I just made a circle skirt based on Sophie’s measurements. I took her hip measurement and found out the radius to cut the inner circle opening. From there, I measured her desired skirt length (19”) and cut. I didn’t have to add hem allowance because I knew I would end up adding a ruffled ribbon trim at the hem. Then I cut a rectangular piece for the bib (with its corresponding lining), a waistband piece and two suspender pieces. I sewed everything together and made two casings in the back waistband where I inserted two pieces of 3/4” elastics cut to half her waist measurement. Done!



For the hair & make up, Sophie and I did a ton of reseacrh on how Dorothy (Judy Garland) did hers.

Hair:

1. Part hair down the middle and brush both sides until it is smooth.
2. Divide each side into 3 equal sections, as if you were doing braids. Except the section closest to the face needs to twist, twist, twist tightly until it reaches behind the ear. At that point, begin braiding the twisted section with the other 2 sections of hair until you reach her shoulders.
3. At the shoulders, wrap a hair tie around the hair to keep the braids from coming undone.
4. Use a curling iron to curl the remainder of her hair below the shoulders. 
5. Cover the hair ties with a light blue ribbon tied into a pretty bow.

Make up:

1. Begin by covering the face with a light colored foundation and powder to achieve that smooth porcelain skin look.
2. Apply pink blush to the cheek bones.
3. Apply dark pink or red lipstick.
4. Apply a bit of eye shadow (Not too much)
5. Apply mascara to open up her eyes more.

Now, all we needed was the prefect TOTO. Luckily, we had our Miniature Schnauzer, Duke, who fit the part and was more than eager to help out with the photoshoot.

Broken Little Red Riding Hood Doll

As my kids get older (Sydney just turned 11 and Sophie is turning 14 soon), I worry about them losing their childhood and not being into some of the fun things we used to enjoy.... Halloween being one of them. Luckily enough, they still seem to be very much into it. It's just a little different now. They still love the process of dressing up, but now they have more say in what they want and it's often really involved. Last year, Sydney and I had a blast dreaming up, creating, and photographing her Wednesday Addams costume. She was very involved in the hair, make-up, and staging of the photos. Sophie was also very involved in her zombie costume last year.

This year, Sydney and I sat down and looked at tons of inspiration photos online before she decided on two ideas... "Broken Doll" and "Little Red Riding Hood". Since she couldn't pick a favorite, I pitched the idea of a costume mash-up, and she loved it. Here was the result...

For the dress, I used the newest MODKID PDF pattern, the Charlotte Dress & Jacket. This is View C, which features long bubble sleeves, a two-tiered skirt, inset pockets and a double-breasted bodice with 6-button placket. I chose dark cotton fabrics, purchased a Jo-Ann Fabrics, to resemble a Vintage Doll dress.

For the Hooded Cape, I used instructions from my upcoming book, Patternless Sewing, out in Spring 2016. This is one of the 24 projects included in the book, and it was perfect for this costume idea! I know this doesn't help you any right now if you are looking to create your own Hooded Cape. But luckily there are plenty of tutorials online that you can use to get a similar effect. I used Fleece for the outer cape and satin for the lining. The cape is fully reversible!

The make up was quite the process! We started out by covering her face with the palest foundation and pressed powder I could find at Ulta. Sydney has an olive skin tone, so we applied this make-up with a heavy hand. We used Revlon Colorstay Base in 110 Ivory and NYX Blotting Powder in BLP01 Light. Make up was applied over lips, eyelids and eyebrows too for full coverage.

Next, I applied blush on her cheeks, again with a heavy hand. I used Ulta Sweet Cheeks Blush, which has a warm tone, but when we do this again this weekend, I will use a pinker shade, as I thought this was a bit too 'warm" for my taste.

Next we whited out her bottom eyelids to try to create the illusion of big doll eyes. Sydney already has really big eyes, but we wanted them to look exaggerated. I used NYX Eye and Eyebrow Pencil in SPE906 White.

Next, I applied eyeshadow in a pinkish/purplish hue to her upper lids. I used Elf Flawless Eyeshadow Party Purple, which I had already, but any pinkish/purplish eye shadow would work for this.

Next, it was time to start drawing! I used Elf Liquid Eyeliner in Black to outline her eye, above the eyelids and below the white eyeliner to create the illusion of a large doll eye. I drew in the bottom lashes using the same liquid eyeliner and I began to draw in some of the "cracks" on her forehead.

I used the liquid eyeliner to draw in more "cracks" on her cheek, then came back in to add highlights with the white eyeliner. This gives the cracks a bit of a 3D effect. We applied mascara to her upper  eyelashes and this made her eyes look even bigger. You could also use fake eyelashes, but since her natural lashes are pretty long and full already, I felt the mascara was enough. We used ULTA Voluptuous Volume Mascara in Black.

Lastly, we used Revlon ColorStay Ultimate in 095 Royal Raisin to draw in the doll lips. I love this lipstick because it does not smear, so even if she drinks something or accidentally rubs her lips, it stays put and does not fade at all! These lips need to be much narrower than the actual human lips and "button shaped" as you see below.

Here is Sydney applying some finishing touches herself. She gets a bit freaked out when I get near her eye with my eyeliner, so she prefers to apply it herself.

We put her hair into low pigtails, put on her costume, grabbed her bread basket, and off we went to the forest...

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!