Book It Day or a butterfly emerges from it's cocoon. Which is symbolic of hope and maybe some kind of metaphor for triumph in the face of adversity.

 So I've been in the hospital. For a week. This is actually the second time I've been hospitalized in three weeks. But I've been ill. For about three months. Not "I'm a dumbass because I won't go to the doctor so now things are serious." kind of ill but, several tips to urgent care/emergency room, scary antibiotics, ill.

 There is nothing like lying flat on your back for days on end, with iv antibiotics running through the central line they jacked into your neck,  to help you realize that you are a complete loser for not finishing your daughter's Book It Day costume.

 If you are unfamiliar with the Book It Program, it is an incentive program sponsored by Pizza Hut that encourages children to read. Our school takes it completely seriously, asking the kids to dress up like their favorite characters from books and having a parade in the gymnasium.

 This year we had a theme: Eric Carle. And although I like Eric Carle's books, he is not one of our favorite, favorites. I do however really love the beauty of his artwork. So when Wub said she wanted to be the Butterfly from The Very Hungry Caterpillar I decided I was going to make her a long tunic style dress with huge butterfly wing sleeves. I was then going to airbrush the dress to mimic Mr. Carle's gorgeous artwork.

 Best laid plans....

But I had to do something. It was so hard on Wub and MHM worrying about me while trying to keep everything just turning over at home. MHM would get up in the morning, get Wub ready for school, head to school and work, pick up Wub from the sitter, grab something to eat and head to the hospital until it was time to go home and get some sleep. At some point he also picked up an upper respiratory infection so that was nice. She was such a trooper, I couldn't let her miss out on the fun of Book It Day too.

 So I sent him to the Dollar Tree to pick up poster board, green duct tape, colored pipe cleaners, and red sock hat. With crayons and a few supplies from home we got started.

 Using the book as a guide I cut out two wing shapes from the poster board. Then I lightly traced the major areas of the wings. Then we colored and colored and colored some more. It took the best part of three evenings and most of one very long day to color both wings (front and back). To be honest, it probably would have taken less time if we hadn't been using a hospital floor and tray table respectively to color on. Also if I had been slightly less doped up.

 After finishing the wings we used the green duct tape to join them together. Four elastic loops were held in place with clear strapping tape and we had ourselves a pretty rockin' pair of butterfly wings.

The head was made by lightly, tack stitching a circle of green foam on top of a circle of yellow foam to the hat brim and repeating on the other side. We then threaded a green pipe cleaner through the top of the hat, centered it making each side equal length. Then curled each side around a pen to form the antennae. I think she made a pretty adorable butterfly.

It definitely distracted us for awhile from scary allergic reactions to antibiotics and scary words like Lupus. They still are not sure what is wrong with me. Pathology points to an infection but it also points to an autoimmune disease such as Lupus. I hope that is not what it is. I won't know the answers for a while because the rheumatologist doesn't have any openings until May. No matter what the outcome. I will make do.

Hell, I hope that I can do better than make do and that I can make a butterfly.

Home Made Halloween

Well we got Wub's Firestar costume done in time for Trick or Treat to be rescheduled. We're under a severe weather warning here. It's been raining and ick all day long. Hopefully tomorrow night will have better weather and She'll get to go to a few houses.
I finished up her mask at 1:00 in the morning last night. It's definitely flamey enough now.

I'm ridiculously happy with how it all turned out. 

I  had three other costumes to make this year. My nephew Brandon needed a bit of help with his costume for work. I was so super excited to help. 

I followed this tutorial at CraftaholicsAnonymous.

Because our costume was a wee bit larger I made a few changes. We used a queen size egg crate and the overalls were made from a twin size flat sheet. I had to sew parts of it because I didn't think the glue would hold up. Considering how quick and easy Wub's costume was I would have to say this definitely qualifies as a labour of love. There is probably 20-30 hours of work in it including having to hand sew in nearly 10 feer of velcro tape so the whole thing would close. Her advice about the aspirin and wine? I wish I could have taken it. Funny thing is I want to make an army of them next year, so it didn't break me. 

 And yes, he really is ginormous. the costume on was in the 8-9 feet tall range. To give you some perspective here is a picture of me and him together. I am 5'9" and he towers over me. 

Which brings us to my last two costumes. Both of which took less than an hour apiece to make.

Let's start with MHM's.

Basically I took a long sleeve knit shirt, (we didn't have black so this grey henley was our best option. The I took about 1/2 yard of black felt and folded it in half.. Used the shirt as a guide I eyeballed a triangle shape then traced a dinner plate along the  edge of the triangle to form the wings. I held the felt together and cut both wings at once. 

I then used a zigzag stitch to attach the wings to each sleeve and side of the shirt.  I found a bat mask I liked with a Google image search. Printed it out then traced the shape onto black foam. Cut out the mask and sewed an elastic to it. From first cut to final fit 43 minutes. That includes having to replace the needle on my sewing machine. 

For my spider costume I cut four circles out of red foam and four our of black and sandwiched a pipe cleaner in between. These are the spider eyes. I wrapped the pipe cleaners around a coffee stirrer because they were too floppy then pushed these into my bun and bobby pinned in place. My original idea had been to cover ascending sized styrofoam balls in red paint and red glitter. I was going to stack them on long wooden skewers and use them as eyes/hair ornaments. I forgot to buy the styrofoam balls so that went bye bye.

I wore a black maxi dress and a black sweater that reminded me of witchy/spider webs. A long sleeved black tee and black pants would have worked to. I thought about freezer paper stenciling a red violin on the back of my long sleeve black tee but decided against it because the shirt fits perfectly, is super comfy and is a great finish piece for a casual outfit. Not so much with a glittery red violin on the back. Also nobody got time for that. 

I measured a piece of elastic to fit snugly and comfortably below the bust. I then cut 3 pieces of black felt about 4 inches wide times the entire width of the fabric. I sewed the each strip along one edge and then trimmed close to the stitching. I threaded the elastic through one of the tubes stay stitching the elastic at each end. Then I formed the elasticised felt tube into a ring and stitched together using several passes of zigzag stitches. I the centered the two remaining tubes over this and zigzagged them down. These are the legs.

Next I took some cotton twine and tied a knot around the end of the leg I wanted to be the bottom leg. I then took the end of the felt tube and knotted it over the string to keep it secure. I eyeballed about a foot of play in the twine and tied another knot around the top leg again knotting the felt around the twine. I then eyeballed about 18 inches and tied a slipknot loop for my wrist. Lather, rinse repeat for the other side.

 All told 1 hour from cut to finish. This included breaking a sewing machine needle at the start and sewing one entire leg without any bobbin thread. (which of course required winding a bobbin and rethreading the machine) 

In the morning I put on a boat load of eye makeup, my dress and sweater, settled the belt under my bust with the legs at the back. Shoved the eyes into my bun and looped the slipknots over my wrist. Voila! Spider costume!

Happy Halloween!

Halloween

We had a lot of fun doing our Jack-o'Lanterns this year. Thanks to Sid the Science Kid Chloe is worried/fascinated by the idea of Frances (her pumpkin's name) decaying.

As we were leaving the house to go trick or treating I noticed a fellow Halloweenie coming round the corner. I went in to get some candy for them. The nice lady asked if Chloe was a Roller Derby Girl because she was also a Roller Derby Girl!!! One of our very own Demolition City Roller Derby Girls!

Hooray for Halloween!