First of all, several of you have emailed me and asked questions – please don’t think I’m ignoring you!  It’s just that I have limited time to be at the computer, but I will get to it!  (I tend to answer questions posted to the blog faster than those sent to my personal inbox.)

Today my kids made hamantaschen, while I took care of some costume stuff for them.  I think at this point everyone is just about set.  Until last year, I sewed most of their costumes, and occasionally bought some of the pieces they needed from the thrift store.  I made the typical kind of costumes – clowns, queens, brides, kings, prairie girl – and was able to make some very nice things by repurposing expensive satins and velvets from prom dresses that I got at the thrift store.  Making costumes is fun and easy, because they can look great even if they aren’t perfect.  There’s nothing like high quality material to hide a mediocre sewing job! 

But as they’ve been getting older, they want to do something more creative, which is fine with me.  I told them as long as I don’t have to think of the idea, I’m happy to help them put together what they want.  But I don’t really have very much to do with it for the kids ages 10 and up.  They go through what we have and find ways to make what they want.  That leaves just the younger kids for me.  The older kids have been helping the 6 and 8 year olds think of ideas, so I haven’t even had to think about what to do for them. But as of last night, they hadn’t finalized what they wanted to do for them.

Yesterday, I responded to a post from someone in my community giving away a couple of homemade crayon costumes, and I called, since the sizes seemed suitable for my ds6.  It turns out it was an old neighbor, who was delighted to give them to me.  I picked them up today, and it turns out that they will fit my dd8 and ds6, which is great!  (And one day, they will be perfect for my two little ones, who are also close in size.)  They are made very simply – basically a colored piece of felt (one orange, one red) made into a long tunic, with black felt cutouts in the shapes found on a Crayola crayon, with RED or ORANGE down the front.  They stapled all of the black felt pieces on, which was a smart way to quickly put it together. But I wanted something that looked a little nicer and more durable, so I sewed all the pieces down.  It looks a lot better now.  We have a red long sleeved red tshirt in the right shade for my dd8 to wear, and my ds6 will wear a black shirt and pants underneath.  I was considering making hats for them to look like the pointed tips of crayons, but don’t think I’ll bother – I could probably find something else to do with my time. 🙂

I have plenty of costumes for the 1.5 and almost 3 year old in our collection, so I’ll pull out something for them the day before.  My ds10 made a half and half costume for himself, using clothes we already have – on one side he’s one thing, and on the other side, he’s something else.  He figured out an ingenious way to wear two pairs of pants and look like they’re one pair.  Dd12 has a dashiki type robe (Indian? – not sure), dd14 is putting together Pippi Longstocking, and ds15 is so far settling with a funny tie for the night, and will borrow what I got for my dh the next day (dh has to work until early afternoon, so he won’t be needing it). 

And me?  I don’t dress up.  I’m just too straight and boring, I guess.  Every year I think I should at least get a funny hat or something, but the day I actually do that, my kids will fall over in disbelief!

It’s nice to know that all of this is taken care of and out of the way! (Oh – and the cost of all of the costumes – free!)

Avivah