Wrap-up

Due to circumstances beyond our control, school is temporarily suspended.

Okay, so not all of it was circumstances beyond our control but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Most of last week was spent making Halloween costumes.  This year Vicki wanted to be Strawberry Shortcake, while Georgie wanted to be a Minecraft creeper. 

Strawberry Shortcake is definitely available but reviews of the costumes mentioned easy tearing, too small sizing, and poor quality.  For $40+, I wanted better than that.

Meanwhile, a creeper costume evidently isn’t available for purchase regardless of price (with the exception of one mask for $80+).

So, this became a year for homemade costumes (Yippee! I like making costumes).

Vicki’s wasn’t too hard.  I made a tutu skirt following the directions that can be found all over Pinterest.  I used sparkly dark pink and light pink tulle, then glued strawberry stickers on the skirt.   For the shirt, I bought a white long-sleeve t-shirt and drew a strawberry and two diamonds with Sharpies.  The hat was made using a white ball cap and a pink bandana.  Spots and a stem were painted on the bandana to have it resemble a strawberry and it was then attached to the ball cap.  The costume was topped off with a pair of green and white striped tights.  I thought it came out pretty cute and Vicki was happy with it.

For Georgie’s creeper costume, I used foam board cut and taped together into the proper size box.   Creeper “skin” was printed from the internet and used to cover the box.  It was then laminated to prevent the ink from running if it became wet.  The eye holes and mouth were covered from the inside with a piece from a fishnet stocking, so it would look solid but Georgie would still be able to see out.  The side panels for the body were open and hinged so he could stick his arms out.  It came out a little awkward for movement but looks pretty cool.

The reason I spent so much time working on the costumes when there was still almost a week until Halloween was because we went to the Halloween festival at our local museum on Saturday.

There were craft tables with Trick or Treat locations throughout the museum. Georgie wasn’t interested in a lot of the crafts and was disappointed with the candy selections but it was still fun.

Now for the Out of Our Control part: Hurricane Sandy.   We lost power Monday and estimates have it returning in 7 to 14 days.  We were lucky than many people since our house is undamaged, although we did have a tree fall in the direction of our house.  The new swingset that we just finished putting together prevented it from hitting the house so it is suspended about 5 feet over the roof.  No damage was done to the swingset either.

We went down to visit Granny Franny for a few days and will probably spend most of next week with Granny Kaye, until our power comes back.