Conservatorium

The greenhouse is finished!  It took My Love two weeks and a la-ha-ot of work but it is finished and he’s ready for spring planting.

This will be My Love’s fourth year gardening.  The first year was a total experiment but he took to it right away and we have enjoyed the fresh produce more than I can say.  Last year he decided to build a greenhouse but with yet another busy fall, he didn’t get to it before snow was a-flying.  I’m actually really glad he didn’t get it done last year because we changed our minds on where it should be located in the yard.

I’ll explain further for my own amusement, feel free to skip ahead if you wish.  We have a spot right behind the garage that is fenced in.  We call it the “enclosure” for lack of a better term.  In it, we store bikes with a tarp over them in the winter, a random pile of bricks, and other yard paraphernalia that doesn’t have a home.  We planned on replacing the fence with re-purposed windows and building a roof to enclose the greenhouse.

Once this very early, very lovely spring hit, we went outside to plan it out.  The windows and the existing fence posts didn’t work together very well so we discussed options.  This area is also right next to the playset and I was concerned about kids playing near so many glass windows.  We thought of a few options to deal with that but it was starting to sound all cobbled together and hodgepodge.

Hodgepodge was not the look we were going for.  The greenhouse was to be built using re-purposed materials but we still wanted it to look nice.  My Love scoured Pinterest and the internet and found some really great looks that he wanted to replicate.

One of us asked if there was anywhere else in the yard it could be built so we started looking around.  There is another corner of our yard that isn’t used for much.  We kind of had it labelled as the fire pit area.  It’s the back corner, where our side, picket fence meets our back, tall fence.  This is why I’m glad we waited until spring had sprung to figure this out.  In the spring when he’ll be growing the seeds, this corner of the yard actually gets a lot of sun because the nearby trees don’t have leaves yet.  Come summer and fall, it’s quite shaded.  We would have immediately discounted this spot as being too shady had we not seen it in the correct season.

So, site chosen and materials ready, My Love set to work.  He started it the weekend my parents were in town so my dad helped him out a bit.  As did Little Love #4.

And Little Love #2.

My Love worked on it steadily over the next two weeks.  He came home from work and worked on the greenhouse until dark.  He had to rip down quite a few boards to use materials he already had and that took some time.  The greenhouse was built out of 24 windows that needed trim pieces cut to size on all four sides, both inside and out.  That means that My Love had to individually measure, cut, and nail 192 pieces of wood to secure the windows in place.  He also used caulk and foam insulation to close up little gaps.

And the painting!  He primed and painted the structure before the windows went in, then we taped off all the windows (106 panes of glass) on the inside and the outside, and he primed and painted once more.

While I was taping the inside panes, Eleanor came up, tapped on the glass, and said, “Moooommmmyyyy, you missed a spot!”

Turkey.

All in all, he thinks he put about 80 hours into it.  It was a lot more work than expected.

Isn’t that everything in life that’s worth while?  Much more work than expected but, oh, so much more perfect and satisfying than we ever could have imagined at the beginning.

Perfect.

On one side, My Love built a bench with a slatted top and a shelf for holding the plants while they grow.  On the other side are supply shelves and a sink for potting.  He’s working on getting a water barrel, too.

All the kids helped at one point or another but these two were fairly constant companions.

They all love helping My Love in the garden so they’re pretty excited about the greenhouse, too.

My Love comes from a long line of people who make things with their hands.  My Love’s grandfather made many things out of metal and tin.  He made the little white windmill in these photos.  He also made his grandchildren brightly colored tin signs with their last names spelled out in rivets.

Is this sign special to us?  Yes!  It makes me smile and think of the kind grandfather who called on each and every birthday and anniversary to say he was thinking of us, just as he did with all of his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.  So sweet.

Is the sign anything I would normally hang . . . anywhere? As much as I hate admit it, no.  The signs had become a running joke among the cousins.  We all loved the signs because Grandpa made them.  Everyone kept them.

But they kept them . . hidden.

It hasn’t been quite a year since Grandpa’s death.  We remember him fondly and I think often of the treasured picture we have of him, my father-in-law, My Love, and Little Love #1 when he was 3 months old.  Generational pictures never cease to make me tear up.

My Love and I were in the greenhouse, looking around and admiring his handiwork when he looked up and pointed out the 2×10 up above the front windows.

“You know what would look great there?  Grandpa’s sign.”

And he’s right.

It’s perfect.

The Adventure of the Thumb-Suckers and the Earring Jar

Our first child took a pacifier for comfort and we took it away gradually between four and five months of age so we wouldn’t have to traumatize him by taking it away later.  Since that worked so well, we assumed we would do the same for our subsequent children. Little did we know how very different subsequent children can be!

Our darling daughters have been thumb suckers since they were tiny babies.  Very, very tiny babies.  Well, as tiny as an 8lb, 1oz-er and an 8lb, 2oz-er can be.  Which is tinier than their five- and seven-year old selves.  Neither of them have ever kept a pacifier in their mouth longer than it took to spit it out.

But their thumbs!  Oh, their thumbs!

The awesome thing about thumb suckers is that they never lose their thumbs.  We never had to worry about forgetting to bring their thumbs to grandma and grandpa’s house to spend the night.  And we never forgot their thumbs at a park.

But oh!

The terrible thing about thumb suckers is that they never lose their thumbs.  They always had their thumbs with them so it became a difficult habit to break.  We couldn’t keep their thumbs in a cupboard while they struggled to get to sleep at night.  We couldn’t poke a hole in their thumbs so they’d lose their fun sucki-ness.  So sucked their thumbs they did.

I read that for proper teeth alignment, children should stop sucking their thumbs by age 5.  That seemed reasonable to me so a few months before Little Love #2 turned five, I told her that once she turned five she couldn’t suck her thumb anymore.  She cried.

I mentioned it again a month later.  She cried again, but not as long.

I mentioned it again another month later.  She pouted.

I mentioned it more often the closer we got to her birthday.  By the time her birthday came, she had accepted that she’d have to give up her thumb.  I didn’t want to make her miserable on her actual birthday so the next day, whenever I saw her with her thumb in her mouth I told her to take it out.  As any kid would do, she took to sucking her thumb when she thought I wasn’t looking.  I’d remind her and she’d glare at me.  I’d remind her and she’d cry.  It became a power struggle.

I hate power struggles.

Especially power struggles I’m not going to win.

So back to the internet I went.  More research said that as long as thumb sucking wasn’t interfering with her everyday life, it wouldn’t be enough to alter her teeth.  It’s not like she sucked vigorously; she just had her thumb in her mouth and usually only when she was tired in the evenings and at bedtime.  She didn’t have it in her mouth all night, either.  So I let it go.

Every once in awhile we would talk about ways to stop but it was such an ingrained habit, especially when she had her blankie, too, that I felt like we would be battling this for years.  Little Love #3 closely followed her sister’s pattern so we were in for double trouble.

I read through yet another article with ideas about stopping the thumb-sucking habit.  One gal said that she herself had had a really big problem with it when she was young but her parents proposed that if she quit sucking her thumb for an entire month, that she and her sister could get their ears pierced.

Pierced ears!

My Love and I thought this was genius.  I had had to wait until I was 10 years old to get my ears pierced so that I’d be old enough to take care of them during the healing process on my own.  I had intended the same for my girls.  But, as Dr. Phil says, “find their currency.”  I was fairly certain that one of the only things my daughters wanted more than to suck their thumbs was to get to wear real earrings.  We didn’t have a plan for when we would bring it up but, as with most things, the opportunity soon presented itself.

On Josephine’s 7th birthday (the day I woke up in the middle of the night with kidney stones – but that’s a story for another day), we were sitting around the living room and Josie started sucking her thumb.  My Love looked at me with one raised eyebrow and I knew what he was asking.  I nodded.

And he began telling her the deal.

“Josephine, your mommy and I were thinking.  We decided that if you and Eleanor both stop sucking your thumbs for two whole months, we’ll let you both get your ears pierced.”

Josephine popped that thumb right out of her mouth and said, “Mommy, will you hide my blankies?  I always want to suck my thumb when I have my blankies.”

She never really says what I expect her to say and, once again, she blew my mind with her maturity.

We told Eleanor the deal and they were both on board.  We started a marble jar system.  One jar had 120 marbles in it, the other had none.  Each day that they didn’t suck their thumbs, they would each get a marble put in the “Earring Jar.”  If one of them slipped up, the entire earring jar would be dumped back into the thumb-sucking jar.

The first day was difficult and neither of them earned marbles.  That night, Josephine had trouble getting to sleep.  I found the crocheted blanket my grandmother had made me when I was a baby and gave that to her to replace her hidden  blankies.  She slept well after that.

The next day and every day day since, they have done wonderful.  It took one day of wanting something more than their thumbs to break the habit and I am so proud of them.  It is now nearing the end of their two months.  The Earring Jar is nearly filled.

I have been talking to them, preparing them for the fact that the piercing is going to hurt.  I told them they would have to be very brave.

Precious Eleanor, with her adorable speech-delayed cadence said, “I not berry brave, I tiny brave.”

Oh, dear girl.  I’ll be berry brave for you.  We’ll get through it together.

Treading Water

This is one of those days where I feel like all I can do is tread water.  It’s all I can do to keep from sinking under the surface of the water and being carried away by the tide.

* The Daycare Loves all came through the door crabby.

* During the first diaper change of the day, I found that I only had two wet wipes in the entire house.  With three kids in diapers here, you can imagine my dismay.

* The washing machine has been broken for a week and a half.  We tried to fix it ourselves (found that there was a hole in a drainage tube, ordered parts, waited for parts, replaced parts, and it’s still not working correctly) and ended up having to call a repairman.  The repairman discovered that enough was broken that they’d have to take the entire washer to the shop to fix it.  They’ll be calling me soon to schedule pick-up.

* You can imagine how much laundry six people go through in a week and a half (and it’s not like I was caught up before that) so the prospect of going another week without washing anything is unfathomable.

* My Love has been busy building a greenhouse so he’ll be able to get a jumpstart on gardening.  It’s turning out awesome but it is time-consuming so I’ve had less help for all that normally goes on in the evening.

* My sister is leaving today for six weeks in Australia.  She’ll be student teaching and I couldn’t be more excited for her.  My Love and I encouraged her to study abroad; we think it’s one of the most important things to do in college.  However, I miss her already.

* Little Love #2 is having two girls sleep over tonight.  The three of them are good friends and one is moving away soon.  We thought it would be fun for them to have some time together outside of school before she leaves.  I’m sure it will all go fine once they’re here but I have all the “my house/food isn’t good enough” crud running through my head like it always does before having people over.

* There is not a lick of chocolate, caffeine, or sugar in this house to give me a little pick-me-up and get me through this longest-of-long Fridays.  No ice, either.  If I can’t enjoy a treat, the least I could enjoy is a nice cold glass of water.  But alas, no, we have European-style room temperature water instead.

I know, I know.  First world problems, right?

* It’s now afternoon, so one Daycare Love went home and two are down for naps.

* I remembered I had pinned a tutorial on how to make your own baby wipes.  Using that, I made my own wet wipes to tide us through the day.  Or a couple of weeks since it made so many!

* I’ll take some time this weekend to go to my in-laws’ house to do laundry.  They are out of state for the winter so no worries about them already being in use.

* My Love and I will work on the greenhouse windows together, taping- and papering-off the mullions so it’s ready for paint.  I think I just miss him this week.  I miss him when we’re busy and don’t get to spend as much time together as normal.

* I think I’ll feel better when my sister has landed safely on that other continent.  Gimme a break, okay?  She’s like my first baby.  She was born when I was 10 and I can’t help but feel motherly toward her sometimes.

* A wonderful friend offered to have Little Love #1 spend the night with her son so I’ll really only have one more child around than usual.  It’ll be fine.  I think I can, I think I can, I think I can . . .

* I’m looking forward to having pop tonight with pizza for dinner.  I’ll just go salivate until it’s time.

Thanks for listening, Friends.

 

 

 

 

Elvis in the House! – The Final Appearance

Well, hello there!  I am back with the final post about our beloved Elvis Halloween.  I was planning on just focusing on accessories but I’m going to try to squeeze everything in to this one last Elvis post.  Here we go!

During the last two weeks of October we downloaded Elvis music and watched Elvis movies as a family.  We created an Elvis playlist that we listened to while making dinners.  It was fun when the kids started recognizing his songs when they heard them in a movie or walking in the mall.  We talked about him and his life.  Little Love #2 was nearly distraught to learn Elvis is no longer alive.  We talked about how his music lives on and still makes people happy so we should be happy that he did live and used his God-given talents to make people smile.

We ordered Elvis wigs from eBay; 3 child-sized ones and 1 baby-sized one.  The child-sized ones were better quality but it looked too large on Dutch’s toddler-sized head.  Oh, well.  Watcha gonna do?  We didn’t want it slipping down over his eyes.  And really, we didn’t expect him to keep it on very long.  Maybe, if we were lucky, we figured we’d get a few pictures out of the deal.

Shoes.  I’ve noticed that shoes really make or break a costume.  For Andrew’s Jailhouse Rock costume, judging from photos and the YouTube videos, he could either wear Converse-type shoes or black dress shoes.  I chose dress shoes because Andrew already had recently grown out of his last pair.  (Again, yay for double purpose!)

Here is what I did for the other three Little Loves:

I took shoes that were either nearly too small or very worn out and spray painted them to match their costumes.  I stuffed them full of paper and went to town spray painting them.

I’m over 30 years old and still can’t use markers without getting them all over my fingers so I was careful with the spray, making sure none got on my jeans during the two coats I put on these bad boys.  The shoes turned out great.  Or at least passable.  I should have watched out for my shirt, though, not just my pants.  Apparently as I shook the gold spray paint with my right hand, some drips flew off and landed on the right shoulder of my favorite shirt.  I washed it multiple times but the paint wouldn’t come out.  I couldn’t bear to let it go.  I’ll never let it go.  I named it Jack and hung it in my closet.  I still wear it around the house.

Anyway. . .

White Jumpsuit Elvis needed a red scarf for around the neck and to tuck into the front of the outfit.  So on Halloween Day (yes, the big day had finally arrived!) I ran to the fabric store and got a small amount of red organza.  I folded it into thirds and sewed it down the middle all bunchy like so it would drape nicely.

We planned our All Hallows Eve get-the-kids-ready-rush carefully.  While Dutch was taking his afternoon nap, we got the other three kids ready and took pictures of them.

Little Love #1 as Jailhouse Rock Elvis:

Little Love #2 as White Jumpsuit Elvis:

Once she discovered this pose, there was hardly any photos of the front of her costume!  Also, notice the green ring from the game Pretty Pretty Princess.  I’m certain Elvis himself would have approved.

And Little Love #3 as Gold Suit Elvis:

This was just the beginning of a great night.

Then, once the boy had slept as long as he could, we got him up and changed him into his costume right away while he was still too sleepy to argue.  We put his wig on him and crossed our fingers.

At long last, after two years of waiting and two months of costuming, we had all four of our little Elvises together:

My Love and I also dressed up for the occasion.  We dressed up Rockabilly-style and called ourselves Elvis’ fans.  My Love was so committed, he even shaved most of his beard.

We headed out trick-or-treating and had a blast.  Everyone we saw loved the costumes and the kids were ecstatic to find out that other people really did know and love Elvis.  (I think they kind of thought we were kidding.)  And, miracle of miracles, Little Love #4 kept his wig on the entire night.

When we got home, there was candy to be sorted.  And in other miracle news, it was then that our camera lens broke.  I don’t know what happened to it, we were just taking pictures of the loot, and the camera wouldn’t take anymore photos.  Something looked off with the lens.  I couldn’t even be upset about it because I was just so thankful that it hadn’t happened even two hours earlier.

And third miracle, Josephine didn’t feel well the day before.  Some sort of tummy bug had gone through her little body but she seemed fine for the holiday.  Halloween night, though, starting around 11:00pm, one by one the other members of my family dropped like flies.  Andrew, Dutch, Eleanor, and My Love were all . . . I won’t gross you out, just know that it was a wicked 24-hour bug.  A bug that, somehow, left us alone for a few hours so that we could have a special day together.

Onward, as they say.  When it was time to work on our Christmas cards to send out, I couldn’t not have our awesome Halloween represented.  So I went mullet style.  I designed a two-sided card.  The first side had the standard group shot and an individual photo of each of their sweet little faces and said, “Merry Christmas, Baby!”  An idea for the second side had taken root in my brain while researching and making costumes.

Wanna see it?

 

Are you sure?

 

It took a lot of freaking work to be honest.  I’m not great at cutting individuals out of photos and pasting them onto another.

 

And the background was all done in my Photoshop Elements program.  That part wasn’t too bad, just a little time.

 

It’s not like I do anything else, right.

 

Ha.

 

Ha ha.

 

Okay, I’ll get to it.  I leave you with this, my fine fellows.  I hope you’ve enjoyed my Elvis journey and now that it’s totally cataloged I promise to post more often.

About things that don’t require four posts to explain.

 

See you soon, my Lovelies!

Best,

Rachel

Elvis In The House! -Part 3

October was Elvis Mania in our house, hence this being the the third of approximately five Elvis posts.

The previous post left off with me being stressed out two weeks before Halloween and still needing to finish two costumes.

Next up was the Gold Suit for Eleanor.  Here’s the Real Deal:

The only Elvis the fabric store had was the Jumpsuit With Cape costume.  Not that I blame them.  I mean, really, who needs more than one option for an Elvis costume?

Oh, yeah.  Demented people such as myself.

So, I would need to adapt other patterns to work for the next costumes.  For the Gold Suit, I found this one:

The martial arts pattern looked like it would fit the bill.  The pants are super easy, with just an elastic waist.  My thought process was to modify the top so the gold fabric meets in front instead of overlapping and then add the band all the way around the front edges in silver, like the real suit.  Then the banding would overlap and I could put a button on for closure.

There is a key word in the paragraph above that needs some special attention.

Can you guess it?

“Modify.”

Me, modifying.  I don’t modify.  I follow directions.

I can’t cook by throwing stuff together and hoping it works out.  I just can’t.  I follow the recipe and it’s either a good recipe or it isn’t.  The most wild I get is adding more garlic because I LOVE garlic.  My Love teases me because I don’t taste what I’m cooking along the way.  I wait for the finished product.  He’s trying to teach me to taste and adjust.  I’m trying but it’s hard to learn a new way to cook.

Anyway . . .

Me?  Modify a pattern?  This is unheard of.  Modifying patterns is only for people who know what they’re doing and know HOW to modify.

But I must be brave and do it.  That’s the only way I was going to get a Gold Suit.

Luckily, the wonderful people at McCall’s must have known that I would someday have this very dilemma.  See, they had a line down the front of the pattern piece that said “Midline.”

{Cue angels singing}

The midline is the line that shows the center front of the garment.  All I had to do was cut the fabric on the the midline instead of around the full pattern piece.

Yay for not needing to think!  Yay for someone else doing my work for me!

I did, however, need to modify the band that goes around the edge.  Since I’d changed the length and the angles, the pattern band would no longer work.  I traced the edge of the jacket on tissue paper and then measured out from there the same width as the pattern band to create a new one.

You know what I mean, Vern?

(Ten points if you get the movie reference.)

Now for the visuals.  They’re showing up a little blurry here but if you click on them to enlarge, they are much more clear.  Go figure.  Anyway:

I added the decorative pocket tops (but not actual pockets), cuffs, and the silver stripes down the sides of the pants.  I chose not to turn the band as it goes up and around the neck to create lapels.  I used buckram to keep the silver sequin fabric band standing at attention, otherwise it would have been very drapey and fall-ey.  Turning the band made the costume look messier so I left well enough alone and I felt that the silver fabric still got the point across.

I made the pants flat in the front by pulling all the extra fabric to the back and tacking the elastic at the sides of the waist.  I thought they would hang more nicely that way, considering the sheen of the fabric.

Speaking of fabric, I chose gold satin instead of gold lame because I couldn’t imagine my 3yo would like the feel of an entire outfit made from lame.  I bought some silver lame for the shirt but I’ll talk about that in a minute.

The tie: I sewed some lengths of leftover fabric into a tube, turned it, sewed the ends, and ironed it flat.  Then I used the glitter paint from Josephine’s costume and made glitter glob studs on the tie.

The shirt.  This is were I ran into problems on this costume.  I had found a classic button-down shirt at Old Navy on clearance for $1.98.  I figured that I would be able to sew silver lame onto the front of it and add a few ruffles to replicate the look of the Real Deal without the work of making a whole shirt from scratch.

Scratch.  I was ready to scratch my eyeballs out working with that Horrible Lame fabric.

Anywhere a needle poked through the fabric it would pull threads 3 inches around it.  To say it looked awful is an understatement.  And I didn’t even get very far.  It was pitiful.  I took a break to regroup.

I needed a ruffled shirt.  Well, ruffles are in fashion right now.  Maybe I could buy a ruffled shirt instead of making one.

I looked online at places that have brick-and-mortar stores in our area.  On Children’s Place I found a ruffled shirt in their holiday line that came in either a shiny white or shiny black.  Hmmm.  Maybe that would work.

I loaded kids into the car and took a little drive to the mall, bringing along the gold jacket.  Luckily, the store had both shirts and I was able to put the jacket over them and see which looked better.  I ended up going with the white and I’m very glad I did.  It looked so much better than anything I could have made with that Horrible Lame.

Plus, Josephine had a cute plaid skirt that I wanted her to wear for Christmas.  This shirt would look great with it.  I bought it a size too big so it would fit Josephine but no one would notice the size on Eleanor under the jacket.

I love it when costume pieces can be used in their regular wardrobe later.

Eleanor’s costume is completed.  Whew!  Three down, one to go.

As I was waiting in line to pay for the ruffly shirt, I spied with my little eye something .  . .

Black.

And leather.

I went in for a closer look.

It was a Black. Leather. Jacket.

I had put off thinking about the Black Leather Elvis costume until I had the other three completed.  I was a bit intimidated by working with leather.

This cute, cropped jacket at Children’s Place was just what I needed.  So what if it was technically a girl’s jacket?  Dutch isn’t even two yet.  He’s not going to care.

I picked out the size 4, the smallest they had.  I tried it on him.  It fit amazingly well.  The sleeves were a little long but that would be easy to take care of.

I looked and the price, holding my breath.

It had been $34.50 but was marked down to $24.99.  Not bad.  By the time I bought nice looking leather-ish fabric and the notions and spent time making the jacket, I felt like $25 bucks was a steal.  It saved me time and stress and I’d be that much closer to being done.

I got back in line with my gold jacket, ruffled shirt, and good-as-gold black leather jacket.  And here’s where it gets really good: the jacket rang up as . . .

Are you ready for it?

Are you sure?

This fabulous black leather jacket, that would save me money and time and stress and was yet another piece of clothing that one of the kids could wear later, rang up for $4.99.

{Cue angels singing}

Five bucks.  A leather jacket for five dollars.  I was so excited about the jacket that I hadn’t seen that it was hanging on a clearance rack.

I floated on a cloud through the mall to Target where I had to pick up a couple household things.  I wandered through the girls clothes, lured by a 30% off sign.  I spotted some leggings on a table.  We don’t often put our girls in leggings but a pair jumped into my arms.  When I looked at what my hands were holding, I saw a pair of shiny. black. leggings.

Leather-ish black leggings?  That are only $6?  Could I really be this lucky?  You mean I don’t have to sew anything for Dutch’s costume?

Thank you, Universe.

I really felt like I was in the right place at the right time to find these items.  I hadn’t even been looking for them.  I’m so glad it all came together, though.  It relieved my stress ten-fold.

The fact that Dutch’s costume wasn’t homemade did bother me a little bit.  But it was a put-together costume, even if it wasn’t handmade.  And being realistic about the price, stress, and quality of the finished product helped me get over it.

Before you think I’ve gone totally un-perfectionist, the wrinkles in the jacket did bother me.  I hung it in our bathroom for a week, hoping that the steam from our showers would smooth it out.

No such luck.

I didn’t know if leather would iron well.  My guess was that it would not.  My Love, once again the voice of reason, convinced me that the wrinkles wouldn’t be noticeable once it was on Dutch.

Now . . .

I couldn’t help giggling that . . .

I had just bought a girl’s size 4 jacket and girl’s size 4 leggings for my son to dress up like Elvis.

And even better?

I bought him a girl’s size 4 leotard to wear, too.

I spent a few days looking for a plain, black onsie for him to wear to bridge the gap between his jacket and leggings.  The closest thing I found was a $12 Batman one and it would be slightly small on him so he’d never wear it again.  Ah, no.

I racked my brains as I walked the children’s clothing at Walmart, trying to find something, anything that would work.

On my third pass by the dance stuff I realized that a leotard is very similar to a onsie.  And it was lower cut in the front so it would work better to have his jacket unzipped a little.

‘Cuz you know Elvis liked to show a little skin.

Leotards start small and stretch so, again, the size didn’t matter.  I just didn’t try it on him before dressing him up on Halloween so it would stay as small as possible for as long as possible.

Now it’s a week before Halloween and besides gluing more jewels on Josephine’s costume, I have the major parts decided on, assembled, and under control.

Next up . . . accessories.

Elvis In The House! -Part 2

October began with setting a costume-making timeline.  I figured nothing would be more difficult than Josephine’s so I should be able to make a costume each week and be finished one week before Halloween.

We decided Eleanor should be Gold Suit Elvis.  It’s a bright, shiny costume for our bright, shiny girl.  Black Leather Elvis and Hawaiian Elvis were the other two we were planning on, and needed to decide which boy should be which Elvis.

But then My Love had another brilliant idea.  Instead of the slightly lame Hawaiian Elvis, what about . . . Jailhouse Rock Elvis?

Woooooo-hooooooooo!  Now there’s an exciting costume.

Andrew would be Jailhouse Rock Elvis since he’d be able to rock the moves.  Which meant Dutch would be Black Leather Elvis and I couldn’t think of anything cuter than my little man in leather.

I told Andrew the plan and then showed him a video on YouTube of Jailhouse Rock.  He immediately recognized it because Grandma Diane, who is a huge Elvis fan, has a Dancing Elvis Telephone similar to the one below that sings and swivels his hips whenever anyone calls.

The lesson I learned that day:  Recognition counts.  Since Andrew had previous knowledge, he was very excited to dress up and imitate Elvis.

We bought a collection of Elvis movies and had the kids watch some of them.  They were made back in the day so there wasn’t a lot of risqué stuff that we wouldn’t want them to see.  They’re kind of like the Simpson’s in that most of the inappropriate material is done in a way that people old enough to understand recognize, but younger people don’t see it.

At least I hope.

Viva Las Vegas was first because it has race cars in it.  And what 6 year old boy doesn’t like race cars?  They found the movie hilarious.  Eleanor liked the songs especially.

Jailhouse Rock costume seemed fairly straight-forward.

http://www.elvis-songs.com/jailhouse-rock.html

 

Jacket, pants, and a striped shirt.  Not so bad.  I decided to buy dark jeans instead of making them because, hey, let’s be honest, they’ll look better.  And instead of spending money on fabric that will only be worn a handful of times, Andrew can wear them after I take the white stitches out until he grows out of them.  Or until there are massive holes in the knees.  And let’s be honest again, that’ll happen in about two months.

Shirt.  The shirt in the picture looks like a knit button-down with a polo shirt-type collar.  I have never seen a shirt like that.  And the white stripes are slightly wider than the black stripes.  The chances of me finding fabric where the stripes are a different width were slim to none.  My sister noticed that the stripes only went to the side seams, too.  Brilliant costumers, that’s for sure.  As he’s moving and dancing, if the jacket flies, there won’t be distracting lines; it’ll all just be shadows.

Andrew had a black polo that was getting a little small on him.  Perfect.  I took some white fabric paint and painter’s tape and went to work.  It’s not perfect but it got the job done.

The painter’s tape I used was 1 inch wide.  I made the white stripes 1.5 inches so they’d be a little bigger, just like in the photo.  However, once I was finished I thought it would have looked better if I’d done 1.25 inches.  My Love needed to remind me once again that I was nit-picking and that the stripes would still get the point across.  Sigh.  He was right.

Next up, the jacket.  Once I found the plainest, darkest wash jeans I could find at Target, I took them to the fabric store and matched a denim to them.  I found a pattern for a zip up jacket and figured I’d just leave the zipper out and put buttons and buttonholes on it.

I didn’t notice until I had all the pieces cut out and had the front and back sewn together that it was one of those jackets that is longer in the front and back than it is at the hips.  Crud.  Elvis’ jacket is cut straight across the bottom.  I fixed it by laying out my leftover fabric and placing the jacket so that the bottom lined up with the edge of the fabric.  Then I pinned and sewed and turned up the now straight across bottom edge to hem as normal.  I didn’t worry about the fuzzy cut edge of fabric.  I figured it would blend in and if anyone noticed, I’d give them a piece of candy, an “atta girl,” and send them on their way.

See?  I can learn to relax and let things go.  Sometimes.

To customize the jacket to look more like Elvis’, I turned down the edges of the collar and turned in the lower part of the jacket edges.

I sewed buttonholes and corresponding buttons, not bothering to open the buttonholes.  The edges of the jacket only meet, they do not overlap.  Plus, I think that’s how Elvis’ was done, too.

Next comes the stitching.  Three strands of white embroidery thread and more time in front of the television.  I did a simple running stitch, trying to replicate the look from the pictures I could find online.  I did the back of the jacket some but not as much as I could have.  I didn’t bother with the back of the jeans, except for continuing the stitches around the waistband.

Lastly, but this is actually my favorite part, the stenciled numbers.

Ack!  Couldn’t you just die?  I love those things.  I thought about using different numbers than Elvis, thinking maybe Andrew’s birthday numbers would be cool or his age and . . . I don’t know.  Something.  But I ended up using the original numbers and I’m very happy I did.  I makes it more authentic to me.

I used a font in my Photoshop Elements program called, you guessed it, Stencil, typed the numbers, fidgeted with the size, printed them out on freezer paper, cut out the numbers, and then used the freezer paper stencil method to paint them on.  There are many tutorials online so I won’t go into details here; just know that freezer paper stenciling ROCKS.

The final product:

Two costumes down, two to go!  My costume-a-week plan didn’t really go as planned.  By this time, it was getting close to two weeks before Halloween with still two costumes to make.  I was starting to feel the pressure, that’s for sure.  So many details to finish up.  My brain was on overload.  More to come . . . soon.

Love,

Rachel

P.S.  I must apologize for the not fabulous pictures today.  I’m still learning where the good light is in my house at the different times of day.  There are better photos to come when Andrew is actually wearing the costume. xoxo

 

Elvis In The House!

Halloween 2010 just might go down in our family’s history as being the BEST ever!

It all started back in 2004 when I only had one kid and I decided to make all of my kids’ Halloween costumes instead of buying them.  I thought it would be nice and fun and a special thing that I could do for them every year.  Little did I know that someday sewing four costumes for a deadline would drive me crazy.

Okay, that’s beside the point.  This story actually began two years ago, in 2008.  My Love had the fab-u-lous idea that we should dress up all the kids as Elvis.  Different versions of Elvis.  Like White Jumpsuit and Cape Elvis.  Hawaiian Elvis.  Gold Suit Elvis.  How awesome is that?!?!?!

I was out-to-there pregnant with Dutch at the time.  We decided that it would be way funnier to have four little Elvis’ than three little Elvis’ so we must wait.  He was due in February so we thought about when he would be 9 months old.  Mmmmm, no.  As excited as we were about the idea, we thought it would be better to have them all vertical and walking so they could all stand together in photos and go trick-or-treating together, instead of one being confined to the stroller.  So we must wait.  Wait until Halloween 2010 when Dutch would be over a year and half old.

And wait we did.  And it was worth it.

We did run into a glitch though.  During the year, we had made sure to bring up the subject every once in awhile that mommy and daddy had decided what their costumes were going to be so they wouldn’t get their hearts set on something else.  We didn’t get into specifics about it because a) Elvis is a big subject to explain to little people who don’t know about him and b) we didn’t want them to tell everyone about it ahead of time.  We didn’t want to exclude people but we thought the surprise would be fun.

When it finally came time to execute our plan, we talked more about Elvis.  That he was a very famous singer that everyone loved.  That he was also famous for the different costumes he wore.  They were all on board and thought it would be fun.  Then we showed them pictures on the internet.  And then . . . Josephine.

Josephine said, “Elvis is a boy?!?!”

“Um, yes, darling.  Elvis is a boy.”  I’m cringing now, waiting to hear what she’ll say next.

“But I don’t want everyone to think I’m a booooooooooooyyyyyyyyyyyy!” and then a few tears start to roll down her cheeks.

$#!+.  Two years of planning and Josie doesn’t want to do it.  This is a delicate situation.

“Honey, Elvis was so famous that lots and lots of people still dress up like him.  Even girls.  Everyone loved Elvis.”

We had already decided that she was going to be White Jumpsuit with Cape Elvis because it had jewels all over it.  If anything could change her mind, jewels could.  And in this case, I wasn’t above a little bribery.  And begging.

We snuggled and I told her all about the cape with jewels on it.  I told her I was planning on getting her a microphone to hold so she could sing into it.  I told her that this was the very last year I would ever tell her what to be for Halloween.  She wiped her tears away and sniffled, “Next year, can I use the microphone again and be Hannah Montana?”

Of course, my dear.  Of course.  Anything you’d like, baby.

And just like that, Little Love #2 was back on board.

She was neutral for a couple days.  Until I went shopping for her pattern, fabric, and jewels.  Once she saw the jewels, she was over the moon excited and completely jazzed about the idea.  She showed everyone in our family individually the jewels that were going on her costume.  As her costume came together and she tried it on, she became more and more excited.

I, however, began to doubt.  I purposefully did her costume first because it was the one that scared me the most.  And let me tell you, the pattern for that outfit was a pain in the a$$.  I’m not going to sugar coat it because it was a freaking nightmare.  I was scared to sew it and I was scared to start gluing jewels on it.  I was pack of nerves and have never broken so many sewing machine needles.  If this costume didn’t work out, we wouldn’t be able to do the Elvis theme.  Two years of planning could be down the drain and I would be forever disappointed that it didn’t work out.

I finally finished the sewing aspect of it.  The outfit was complete.  It wasn’t my best sewing job ever but it was done.  Now for decorating it.  The part I had really been dreading.  Dun, dun, duuuuuuun.

I found a picture of a cape of his that I especially liked.

I had jewels, glue, and little tool to pick up jewels and scooch them into place.  I also had a bottle of glitter paint.  The real cape is outlined in studs that have prongs and attach individually, through the fabric, but I wasn’t about to do that.  It is still just a costume for a five year old.  So, I got glitter paint and made big round globs instead.  Here was my set up on my ironing board.  The cape is attached to the costume so, haha, that made embellishing it interesting.

And you know what?  This was fun!  I had been dreading this part but it was so. much. fun!  All my worries scattered as I spent little snatches of time placing jewels and glitter globs.  In the evenings, I spent longer stretches of time on it while My Love and I watched TV.

I started this project in September.  It took two weeks to sew the costume and I started jeweling it up on September 29th.  I worked on it off and on, right up until the night before Halloween.  The cape took the longest, of course, but there were a surprising number of other places to decorate.  And I didn’t even do as much as I would have liked.  But My Love says that I spent at least 40 hours with the glitter and jewels and you know what?  That was enough.

Are you ready to be bombarded with pictures?  You can click on them to enlarge them.  Here we go:

The bodice:

The pant leg:

The cape:

One of the things I was frustrated with while sewing the costume was the sleeves.  Sleeves are finicky anyway but these sleeves had THREE parts to them; an upper sleeve, a lower sleeve, and the cuff lining.  Ufdah!

Once I got the sleeves together, the way I needed to attach them looked wrong.  In the picture below, see the sleeve on the left?  With the pointy cuff pointing up?  Weird.  I have learned, though, that I do not know better than the pattern.  So follow the pattern directions I did.

And wouldn’t you know . . . once the costume is on and the person wearing it lifts their arm to hold a microphone to their mouth: the fancy cuff is perfectly visible to the audience, as seen on the right.

Another thing that made Josephine happy to wear the costume was the red glitter fabric.  Hee hee hee.  It was all part of the plan.

I do believe I have written enough for one day.  I shall continue with the Elvis Costumes Saga next time.

Have a wonderful day,

Rachel