I’m covered in glitter!

Man, glitter has a way of sticking to you like no other!  The reason I am covered in glitter?  Halloween!!  That’s right, Halloween is in a perilously close 53 days.  I think that this is my second favorite holiday, Christmas being my first.  I love Halloween because I love making my kids costumes.  This is the one time of year that I really go all out sewing things.

I guess you could say that I know my way around a sewing machine.  When I was growing up my mom ran an alterations business from home, so I just watched her and learned how to do it.  Whenever my mom got a new sewing machine, she would keep her old one and that one would be mine.  I have memories of her sewing on her machine, sewing for people, and I would be on my machine making my dolls clothes with whatever scraps of fabric were lying around.

So you would think with a master seamstress for a mother, that I would have had all homemade costumes, right?  Wrong!  I didn’t want homemade ones when I was a kid.  Back in my day, (you know when we had to walk to school uphill both ways) I always looked forward to the day when we go to go to Jacks (the Iowa version of Shopko, which coincidentally was bought out by Shopko about 10 years ago) to pick out my costume.  I remember all the boxes would be lined up on the shelf just waiting to go home with me!  This was the day of plastic molded masks and vinyl printed dresses that made up the body.  I loved it!  I can’t remember what I was any year, I just remember what seemed like an eternity of boxes for me to pick from!   Ah, good times.

My kids are not so lucky.  Or they are lucky depending on your point of view.  Usually they can pick what they want to be, some years, though, I have to prod them in the right direction.  For instance, this year the princess wanted to be Cinderella, which I was okay with, and was all ready to make.  Then I went to go get the pattern and saw a really cute fairy type one, and decided that she needed to be Tinkerbell instead because that would be much more fun for me to make.  She likes Tinkerbell, so it’s not a huge deal.  Maybe she can be Cinderella next year. 

The TRMinator wanted to be a cowboy this year.  At first I told him no, that was too boring, but now that I’ve decided to undertake the crazy task of making a Star Wars Clone costume for the G-man, TRMinator may get his wish to be a boring cowboy.  No offense to anyone who is a cowboy this year, I just thought it would be boring to make.  I mean, what else would I make besides a vest? 

Now, I guess it’s time to get back to the glitter.  Only 53 days to go!