For most of my childhood we didn't celebrate Halloween. It's strange because I know that at one point we did (I've seen pictures of us in costume and I vaguely remember those 1970s plastic masks that we wore! You know, the ones that you could barely breath in?) I'm pretty sure I had this mask!
Even before my mom became a Christian and banned Halloween and it's festivities we didn't really celebrate it much anyway. I'd heard all about the "it's the devil's birthday", "it's a time for darkness and evil" but I never understood if all we did was dress up in a fun (non-satanic) costume why we couldn't beg our neighbors for candy.
When I had kids of my own and it came time to decide what we would do about Halloween we decided we'd leave it up to the kids. For the greatest part of their childhood we were involved in ministry and we would be a part of a team at a Halloween Alternative Event" which even as an adult I didn't fully understand why it was considered an "alternative" to Halloween. The kids still came in costume, they still played games, ate food and we still handed out candy....the only difference is it was held in or by local church(es). Whether it was called a Jamboree, a Fall Festival, a Bible Bash....it was still a Halloween celebration. I think we put way too much emphasis on the term Halloween and not enough on what it really is. I don't mean a night of satanic worship and sacrifice - or the birthday of the devil (other than being told of this in church...I've NEVER seen or heard of these things actually taking place on Halloween) but it's a time for the kids to dress up and have fun, get a sugar high. Some years my kids chose to do this - some years they didn't but the years that they did it was so much fun watching them!
My son (age 6 months)
His favorite character Woody (age 6)
His favorite character Napoleon Dynamite (16 years)
My daughter as Pirate Princess with her Shipmate TyTy (age 8)
As her favorite TMNT Donatello (age 10)
She wore the same costume the following year with a
pair of handpainted green converse boots!
and this year (age 12) as Nyan Cat
I had no idea who that was before googling to make her costume!
in case you're not sure....
Yes. that's all it is.
While I'm here....I'll tell you how I did it.....it was much easier than I thought it would be.
I used 2 of those cardboard 3 fold presentation boards for the poptart. I cut it down (straight across) to fit waist-high (her preference) I hot glued the tri folds down just for the reinforcement.
I used a camel colored felt to cover both of the boards - I made sure that I went over the backside of the boards for a nice finish. (I bought a yard of the felt material from Walmart) and I also bought a yard of pink felt for the icing. (you can get away with less than a yard but at the time there was no one back there to help cut the material and so we actually cut it ourself and took a pic of the label on the bolt to use at the register)
Glue the icing on the top of the poptart placing it in the middle. I used a darker pink piece of felt for the sprinkles - just cut into rectangular pieces. I would've made them much smaller and more thin but this is how she insisted that it should be.
She was going to wear dark gray sweatshirt and pants with the costume so I bought a piece of dark gray felt to make straps from the underside top of each board - this created a sandwich board for the poptarts. It blended in much better than using the same color of the poptart - that just stood out too much and didn't look as well.
To make the tail I used 2 pieces of the gray felt and cut out in the tail shape (make it extra wide to glue and stuff!!) I hotglued the pieces together and stuffed with polyfill - glued the top shut and then glued the entire tail to the backside of the back poptart.
I also used the same dark gray felt to make the headband since it was impossible to find a gray cat ear headband. It was really easy to wrap and glue down the felt around the thin plastic headband. For the ears - double over the felt and cut out the ear shapes - you will want a long piece in the middle because you need enough to wrap around the headband and still be able to glue them flush. I had to try twice before getting the piece in the middle long enough. When attaching the ears - I glued one of the ears pieces to a piece of cardboard for reinforcement and then wrapped the ear around the headband and meeting both pieces together - when they would be flush - I glued it. Repeat for other ear. If done correctly both ears should stand up straight on the headband.
The skirt was made from ductape. She wanted the skirt to only go right above/at her knees. I did strips of the rainbow colors vertically on a large piece of plastic cutting board - when I'd get about 8 strips done (overlap each piece by a tiny bit) gently turn the panel over, and use another tape (I used white) to put stripes horizontally to reinforce the tape to help prevent the tape from splitting. I continued this until I had enough panels to wrap around her waist with extra to spare. Every third color stripe I put in a pleat by folding over and putting a piece of tape over it. Do this all around the skirt. After finished I went back and made the waistband - being sure to go over all the pleated tape pieces to reinforce (I also went back after everything and covered up any colored pieces inside the skirt with the white) on the back I split the tape enough for her to be able to slide the skirt down (pulled on, not pulled up!!) after I figured out how much it needed to be split to allow her enough room to get it on/off easily I reinforced the split with more tape on the outside & inside and I added sticky back Velcro pieces to the waistband to keep the split shut.
She wore her gray fingerless gloves (I gave her the option of gluing pink pads on the palms and fingertips for the paws but she decided against it)
It turned out to be a pretty cute costume....especially considering I had no idea who Nyan Cat was before and it took abo$40 to make. It would've been less but I bought the sweat pants and shirt - and I bought more than enough material (and in some colors, too much duct tape!...finding an orange tape that wasn't neon was tough! I finally found some at Hobby Lobby but it was about $3+ more a roll than the other colors I got at Walmart and not near as much on the roll!) But my girl is happy and so I am happy.....and that's what matters most!
