Walking Dead

Alexander decided he wanted to be a zombie for Halloween this year. His easiest costume since he was a construction worker! We made a trift store run and ended up with this:

Next step, distressing the clothes. Alexander had fun putting his brother on top of the trousers and dragging him around the driveway!I cut down the jacket so it fit, and then we started cutting and slashing away. The next step was blood. Sites everywhere talk about making blood out of karo syrup- no. Not for your clothes. I picked several colors of red, brown and black paint, and got to work. We made him extra bloody. Finally we made his face up pretty simply and used white hair color in his hair. On Halloween night we added some stage blood for fun, but not on days where he would were the costume for a long time. It's just not comfortable! Alexander wanted intestines, so we ripped out the front of the shirt and made a belt out of ledftover pleater I had. I velcroed that around his waist. I had read that the expanding insulation spray used in walls and around windows would make good intestines. We lay the belt over a large exercise ball(for a curve) and sprayed in the shape of intestines. Then we painted them bloody. It worked ok, but next time we need something more pliable.Alexander couldn't bend over, they cracked after a few uses, and they weren't that noticeable. We needed a few nice loops hanging down. Here is the end result- Make-up:

And full body:

Here you can see intestines:

Alien Bad Guy Space Robot

Tristan decided he wanted to be a robot for Halloween this year. He is pretty obsessed with robots, alien robots,and evil bad-guy robots. So I started scouring Pinterest for ideas. There were plenty out there, and I put together several ideas I liked. First, I made him a bodysuit out of shiny material. I looked at dryer venting, but1. it was expensive, and 2. it looked uncomfortable. When I was a teen I made a quick robot costume out of a silver plastic sweat suit (literally- it was suppose to be futuristic material that made you sweat off the weight) so I know the body suit idea would work. I also made a cardboard sandwich board for my costume, and that seemed easy enough to copy. I then doctored it up with my own ideas and Pinterest ideas. I used a great jet pack idea, mainly. I then added battery powered lights and drew dials and glued on knobs (lids).

Tristan wanted a head, and oddly a bucket had shown up in my yard some time ago. So I pulled out the bucket and it was perfect. I cut the handle off to be antenna, and I added a glow stick. I also tied glow sticks to the bottom of his jet pack, with limited success. Presto, the kid was very happy with his robot costume.