My retro 80s toy children...

After 3 years of doing duo costumes (Finn and Jake, Mordecai and Rigby, and Spy vs. Spy) this year my kids decided to go it alone. McKenna wanted to be Twilight Sparkle from My Little Pony and Sage wanted to be an oldskool Gameboy. Both toys originated in the 80s, so that's kind of a theme. Here's our obligatory porch pic...

 And some solo shots. In exchange for one-of-a-kind costumes, my kids know that all I ask for is a few decent pics. It's a small price to pay and they are usually happy to oblige (but eager to go out and collect candy).

Here are some work-in-progress pics...

 

You can read the tutorials I wrote for the My Little Pony Costume and the Gameboy Costume on Instructables.com.

Whew! The whirlwind Halloween costume-making kokoleo sweatshop is officially closed for another year.

A kokoleo kind of Regular Show

This year, my kids decided they wanted to be these guys for Halloween:

It's Rigby and Mordecai, from Regular Show on Cartoon Network, and most people have never heard of them. Just like Adventure Time (their costumes last year), it's one cartoon they enjoy watching together. It was quite the challenge though, and I only had 3 days to do it.  Fast forward forty dollars of fleece and fourteen hours of cutting and sewing and here's what I came up with.

Here are a few pics of the process:

I would have written up a tutorial but I was manically making it up as I went along and not taking many pictures. I did discover what is destined to be my new favorite textile - FOAM! It makes everything all Muppety, I love it. The kids both remarked how soft and warm and comfy the costumes were and plan to wear the pants as pajamas after Halloween is over.

On Sunday, after a morning spent skipping church to sew the finishing touches on their costumes, we took them trick-or-treating at The Landing in Renton. Most people didn't know who they were but a few kids yelled out "Mordecai and Rigby!" and some of the hipper parents were impressed. A few asked "Where did you find those?" to which I replied that I made them and they looked at me in disbelief.

Still, most people had no clue who they were. One mom said, "Wile E. Coyote and an Angry Bird! How cute!" One little girl in a princess dress looked at McKenna in horror and started crying. That was funny.

The best was the several different groups of teenagers who told them they were awesome. It's not every day a teenager tells a 5 and 10 year old that they're awesome.

This may be the last year they want to do a bro/sis costume combo so I had to do it.

As Rigby and Mordecai would say, I did them a "solid." They totally owe me...

...lots of candy.

Made with Love

I know Valentine's Day is a consumer-driven hyped up holiday that ends up making some people feel lousy, but I have to admit I always end up getting swept up in the love. A few years ago Sage started a tradition of making all his Valentines for school friends (see my previous post) and now McKenna is following in his footsteps.

She drew 6 different Valentine-themed pictures and I printed them out on card stock and she embellished them with hearts and suckers. One the back of each one was this printed this message:

I tried to get her to write Happy Valentine's Day but she insisted on "I LOVE YOU," which seems like a rather bold statement to hand out to people willy-nilly, but she didn't care.

While we perused the Valentine aisle at the grocery store she oohed and ahhed over all the stuffed bears and monkeys and whatnot decked in red and white and holding hearts. I couldn't bring myself to buy her one though.While she saw a goofy, fluffy, Valentine stuffed animal, I saw a cheap, Made in China sweatshop symbol of ridiculous American consumption. And besides, her bedroom is beginning to become one big symbol of ridiculous American consumption and I don't want another stuffed animal to have to pick up off the floor, so I made her a pillow instead:

It's soft and furry and has an even furrier M stitched on the front. I love the feel of that fabric but holey moley my studio now looks like I murdered a Muppet.

For Sage, I took this too-big Super Mario shirt I found at a thrift store,

and turned it into this:

It's not a pillow, but a "pipe":

It's super cozy like a big long muff. He was a tad perplexed at first but I showed him how he could put his Super Mario Bros. figurines through it and send them to different levels just like in the video game, or he could use it as a muff to keep his hands warm, or as a single leg warmer, or an elephant trunk warmer... the possibilities are endless!

I didn't make anything for Erik this year, but I did get him an IUD, well I got me an IUD, so we don't make any more babies. I have enough things to make and people to love in my life right now, I don't need any more.

A little handmade paper puppet love...

Sage and I spent the weekend making 45 of these:

 They're origami hand puppets, called "Gabbies". He decided to make one for each kid in his class and give them as Valentines.

 We put a chocolate conversation heart in the mouth of each one.

Isn't that sweeet!? They're lots of fun...

We learned to make these years ago but I forgot how to do it so he re-taught me the steps. He was such a good teacher that we decided to make a video so he could teach you how to make one too. Here's his YouTube debut:



And here are the steps in order:

 

Happy Valentines Day!

'Twas the Night Before Christmas...

I volunteered to be in charge of the Christmas pageant at my church this year at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in downtown Renton. We only had three practices and for a while feared we might not have a Mary and a Joseph but at the last minute we pulled it together.

Last week I made a donkey costume, two angels...

 and Sage's King costume.

And though the sheep were restless and the angels were mischievous, we managed to pull off a pretty adorable pageant.

Merry Christmas!

I Am The Eggman

Yesterday I mentioned I'd have a few more eggs ornaments to share. This afternoon I whipped out the glitter and nail polish and googly eyes and felt and fake fur and went nuts on one little egg. A little too nuts apparently, because I broke it.

It was meant to be a goldfish, complete with a tinier googly-eyed fish inside, but attempting to attach a side fin did him in and my thumb broke through. Oh well, such is the peril of working in a fragile medium. That ornament I made for Sage the other day? Here was first attempt:

D'oh! But my snowman, I'm pleased to say, came out just as I planned. Here's how...

First, I made a felt top hat. Here are the pieces:

Fold the rectangle and stitch up the edge where the two sides meet.

Place the smaller circle on top and stitch it  all the way around. If you're not adept on the sewing machine, this part might be better done by hand.

Next, turn your hat top right side out and place on top of your larger circle. Using black thread, stitch it together all the way around.

Cut a hole underneath and stuff it with fiberfill.

You could always just skip that part and have a hatless snowman though. The main things you need for this project are 3 eggs and some hot glue.

I painted the eggs with white iridescent nail polish to add some strength and make them shimmer.

After I stuffed them with some fiberfill (it gives a little extra something for the glue to stick to), I glued the eggs together at the edges.

I covered the first glue ring with a felt scarf for his neck, then painted over the second glue-ring with the white iridescent nail polish. 

Then I carefully poked holes in his sides, squirted in some glue, and inserted some sticks from a tree in the yard. I poked a hole in his face for a carrot nose (1/4 of a toothpick painted orange) and with black sequins, gave him eyes, a mouth, and buttons. Behold, Frosty the Eggman!

There must have been some magic in that carton of eggs I found.

It's beginning to look a lot like Easter... wait, what?

Years ago around Easter I wrote a blog post about artist June Hoffman and the art of Eggeury. In that post I talked about the Christmas ornaments my dad's secretary made for us out of eggs. I always found those fascinating and I think of them every year when we get out our ornaments to hang on the tree. Today I searched for "Christmas Eggs" on Etsy and compiled this treasury:

 (Click on the picture to go to Etsy and see the artists' other work.) 

I love the painstaking detail in each of them and the fact that they've elevated eggs from compost fodder to fragile keepsake.  Since the ornaments my dad's secretary made are all at my parents' house, I decided to make my own for our tree. One of my favorites was an egg that contained a picture of my brother and me, decorated with ribbon and trimmed in pearls. I wanted to do that with pictures of my kids, so here's my attempt:

Here are the supplies I used: an egg, a photo, ribbon and trim, fiberfill, and a hot glue gun.

I carefully poked a hole in the center of a blown-out egg. I'm sure expert use a Dremel or some other tool, but I just used a needle and my fingers, hence the rough edges.

Then I hot glued on some trim to cover it.

 Next, I filled the egg with fiberfiill and carefully inserted the photo inside...

then squirted a dollup of hot glue into the hole at the top, inserted the knot of a string of ribbon,

 tied it in a bow, and hung it on the tree.

 

For Sage's ornament, I did it a little differently. I painted the egg with nail polish, glued the photo to the edges of the egg-hole, then glued a ring of beaded wire around the photo.

 

For the hanging device I squirted some hot glue in the hole on the top and inserted a looped strand of beaded wire. Here it is hanging next to his Shrinky Dink snowman:

 

 And here they are together, two eggs-tra special ornaments for my eggs-eptional kids.

Check back tomorrow to see the Frosty the Eggman I made! and possibly some others. We had scrambled eggs for lunch today so I have a few more empty shells begging to be transformed.