I blinked and now it’s Halloween. This year’s Halloween costume goes underwater and focused on something that’s both mystical and haunting.
The leaves are a little underwhelming this year, but there have been some great pockets of color in and around the city and the Hudson Valley. Last weekend, we hiked upstate to a farm we visted last year, DuBois Farms. They have THE BEST apple cider donuts. Yes, more delicious than these. But the main reason we went back was for the animals. Liam loves the farm animals. The weather cooperated, too. It was chilly in the shade, warm in the sun. We picked some pumpkins, enjoyed our donuts, and visited the animals. It was a perfect fall day.
Favorite Decorations & Drinkware
This year, Pottery Barn has had some really great Halloween decorations, including this Jack-O-Lantern pillow. Yes, I previously said it was backordered, but out of the blue, it arrived about two weeks ago. It’s humungous and so full of Halloween spirit. It makes a perfect addition to my pumpkin collection–peep the mummy pumpkin I made years ago! Another fun pumpkin project? This pumpkin wreath.
I love my ghosts. While on a trip to HomeGoods back in August, I saw the ghost in the witch’s hat and could not pass up the oportunity buy it. I already had the one without the hat from last year’s Halloween shopping. The ghost mug from Pottery Barn is new this year!
Jack-O-Lantern
This year, I opted for a simple, hand drawn carved pumpkin. Well, we ended up with two because Liam wanted his pumpkin carved, too. He helped scoop out the pumpkin guts. Did I tell you how much I love these flameless, flickering pumpkin lights?
Fall Paint Project
Our son has been crafting a lot at school. He really enjoys painting. Here are some of his fall-themed crafts he made:
On a recent trip to Joann’s, I picked up some watercolor kits and brushes. For one of our projects, I used white crayons to draw ghosts, spiderwebs, and pumpkins on paper plates. When Liam painted the plates, the colors revealed the drawings by not absorbing into the crayon wax. They were a lot of fun to make.
Liam’s Costume
This year’s Halloween goes underwater. It’s one part Liam’s choice and one part inside joke. When we were in our last house, Liam would occassionally say there was an octopus floating in the room. I’m not sure if he was just saying it because it got a reaction out of us or if he really saw something. At first we were a little freaked out. However, the ‘octopus’ didn’t come off aggressive or mean, so we sort of left it alone and let it run its course. The octopus didn’t follow us to our new home, but the piggy bank he picked out for his room is… an octopus.
Due to pandemic stress and just overall exhaustion, we were not going to lean hard into Halloween. We still think he’s too young for trick-or-treating and there wasn’t anything to dress up for this year. However, his school was having a Halloween parade. So we went back to brainstorming. When asking what he wanted to be it came down to: a car wash and an octopus. Up until a month ago, he wanted to be a car wash. Then one day wanted to be an ocotpus and didn’t look back.
Making the Octopus Costume
To create this costume, I got the the zip-up hoodie and sweatpants from Old Navy. I bought a second pair of sweats to cut up and form the four additional arms. In all the octopus costumes I found online, they created 8 arms to wrap around the kids. He already has two legs, two arms, and I’m only making the smallest number of additional appendages for this costume.
The eyes are made out of white and charcoal felt and ironed on with adhesive. Yes, those are octopus eyes, look it up. For the suckers, I bought this cool fabric from Joann’s. It’s sort of raised in some spots and creates this cool texture. Once I ironed them onto the adhesive, the raised spots disappeared. WOMP! Some of them stayed up, but I still think they look ok.
After cutting up the second pair of sweats, I hand-sewn them into four octopus arms, ironed on the suckers, then stuffed them with poly-fil. I sewed them closed and then attached them to the zip-up hoodie.
It’s really cute and I’m happy with the result. Liam needed to get a bit used to the costume, so we practiced putting it on for a week, so he could get used to the arms being attached to the hoodie. He tried tearing them off on the first fitting. Then, when we got out of the car and headed to the parade, he asked to put on his costume. I was so caught off guard, but extremely happy. He looked so good in the parade. Proud dad over here!
Are you doing anything for Halloween?
