Costumes

I like to reserve my super-mom powers for exactly two times a year... my kids' birthdays and Halloween. That way I can concentrate all my effort into short periods and feel better about my slacker mom status for the rest of the year.

(Because let's face it... being a mom of three kids under the age of 6 is really all about survival, right?)

One of my favorite things about Halloween over the last few years has been creating the kids' costumes. Not only do I have a good excuse to spend exorbitant amounts of time crafting, but it also means I get to dress them up however I want. Unfortunately, my girls are starting to get to an age where Mommy can no longer talk them into whatever idea I have in my head (the shame!) and this year, they insisted on being rock stars. I couldn't decide if I should be excited that I was going to be off the hook when it came to time and effort considering the whole "rocker chic" look happens to be the trend right now and I knew supplies would be in abundance, or disappointed for the same reason. (Let's be real here... that's my favorite part!) One way or another I knew I just had to make them as adorable as possible.. and considering their natural cuteness, it wasn't difficult.

Here are the girls showing off their duds:

Kaylee's was the simplest of the bunch. This summer we were shopping at Kohl's and noticed a cute little "rocker" dress on clearance and as soon as Kaylee saw it she knew she wanted it as part of her costume. Then it was just a matter of hunting down the right leather jacket (a la the Children's Place), leggings (which my sister in law found at the dollar store), the perfect accesories, and making her guitar.

(She's missing her cute little pink scarf in this picture.)

Kaylee and I made the guitar from black foam board, which isn't the most forgiving or sturdy of materials, but it held up long enough to throw on some glitter foam paper, draw on "strings" using a silver gel pen, and attach a black sheer ribbon to hold it around her neck. (It was really just for pictures anyway... I didn't have high hopes of it holding up past Halloween!) Kaylee was in charge of her own treat bucket and I thought she did great. (I especially love the dress up necklace she had me hot glue at the bucket rim for some extra sparkle... such a creative little girl!)

Jadyn's took a little more creating on my part, but was still pretty simple. For the shirt, I just took a black long sleeved shirt from Target and ironed on letter appliques and skull patch. I had hoped to find a cute double layer pettiskirt for her to wear, but the ones I found were crazy expensive, so I just attached a pink tutu skirt that Kaylee had with a black one (also from Target) and added ribbon strips which I tied around her waist. The cute zebra print leggings were a pair of women's knee highs that I turned into leg warmers and the scarf I found on clearance at Claire's. For her treat bucket, I pretty much just copied her ribbon belt. Easy peasy!

And of course, little brother had to be in the band too (which the girls named "Starlight" by the way.) I found the cute little boutique rock onesie at a consignment sale - you can't really tell in the pictures, but it has a red foil applique of a guy playing the guitar and a "rock" logo on the back. I found his leather jacket at Children's Place too. The red striped hat was from Gap and I just ironed on a skull applique that I cut down to fit. I really wanted to tear up his jeans and add some patches, but these were the only cute pair he had and I couldn't bear to ruin them, so instead I just added some temporary tattoos to the fabric... stayed on great and washes right off! (Wish I would have taken some some up close pictures of the jeans - cause they turned out pretty cute! I even added a little "Mom" heart tattoo. :-) )

Oh, and I love the little skull crib shoes I found on eBay.
The best part about these costumes? Just about everything can be worn again with regular clothes or used for dress up... which means they'll actually get some use out of them instead of sitting in the costume bin in my closet!

Here's two attempts at getting them all to smile and look at the camera. Which of course, seems much more complicated now that there are three of them! (And thus, why Mommy put Photoshop at the top of her Christmas list... hello face swaps!!)