Have A Crafty Halloween!
Halloween is the prime time to be a crafty mom.
Costumes are expensive in price, cheap in fabric and stitching, and the shopping trip alone resembles a pre-Black Friday bootcamp.
Halloween excites me because I tend to have very... specific children. Sometimes they want to be something/one that isn't very popular and, thus, is hard to find. Other times, they want to be someone/thing that is everywhere, but they hate the cheap costumes available or the costumes don't have the certain look they are going for. More times than I have fingers, I have wound up completely scratch-making a costume.
This year, my son surprised me by opting to go with a character tee shirt and mask, instead of an entire costume. This was a complete shock to me, as he is usually my most specific kiddo.
Then, my toddler spotted a little mermaid costume for $15 at Wal-Mart and was sold.
What!? Would this be the year that I just have to sit back and do nothing!? Could it be!?
Nope. My Molly Bug did not let me down.
"I want to be Uma." she said to me. I had no idea who Uma was, and made the mistake of letting her know this. She leapt off of the chair, turned off Nerdy Nummies (Hey! 😣), and searched her YouTube playlist.
It turns out, I was late to the party on the whole Disney's Descendants scene, which is crazy because we're a Disney family. I guess I figured I still had a ways to go before my five year old would get into the older Disney kid shows. I was wrong. Apparently she just turned thirteen and I missed a few years.
Uma, as it turns out, is the daughter of Ursula who was banished to the Isle of the Lost with all of the other Villains after Belle and King Adam took over. She is the Big Bad in the Descendants sequel, leading a band of pirates including Gaston's son, Gil, and Captain Hook's son, Harry.
Costumes are expensive in price, cheap in fabric and stitching, and the shopping trip alone resembles a pre-Black Friday bootcamp.
Halloween excites me because I tend to have very... specific children. Sometimes they want to be something/one that isn't very popular and, thus, is hard to find. Other times, they want to be someone/thing that is everywhere, but they hate the cheap costumes available or the costumes don't have the certain look they are going for. More times than I have fingers, I have wound up completely scratch-making a costume.
This year, my son surprised me by opting to go with a character tee shirt and mask, instead of an entire costume. This was a complete shock to me, as he is usually my most specific kiddo.
Then, my toddler spotted a little mermaid costume for $15 at Wal-Mart and was sold.
What!? Would this be the year that I just have to sit back and do nothing!? Could it be!?
Nope. My Molly Bug did not let me down.
"I want to be Uma." she said to me. I had no idea who Uma was, and made the mistake of letting her know this. She leapt off of the chair, turned off Nerdy Nummies (Hey! 😣), and searched her YouTube playlist.
It turns out, I was late to the party on the whole Disney's Descendants scene, which is crazy because we're a Disney family. I guess I figured I still had a ways to go before my five year old would get into the older Disney kid shows. I was wrong. Apparently she just turned thirteen and I missed a few years.
Uma, as it turns out, is the daughter of Ursula who was banished to the Isle of the Lost with all of the other Villains after Belle and King Adam took over. She is the Big Bad in the Descendants sequel, leading a band of pirates including Gaston's son, Gil, and Captain Hook's son, Harry.
Uma is Molly's newest obsession.
I admit, I did find it funny. I've been a mermaid-obsessed little girl my entire life. Ursula is my villain. Bebé Norah choosing that little mermaid costume in the store was absolutely fate!
So we pulled up Uma costumes on different websites. A couple looked pretty good- Disney does a great job with their deluxe costumes- but I was not about to spend $50 on it. The cheaper alternatives, of course, looked even cheaper than their prices.
And just when I thought that was going to be our only problem, I realized that all of the costumes were sized for bigger girls, ages 6+. If you know Molly Bug, you know that she was born tiny and has maintained that tiny figure as she has grown. She can still fit in her 3T shorts, to give you a clue. All of these costumes were waaay too big.
"I really want the wig." Oh boy, there's more. The wig was an additional cost that carried the same price as the costume itself! I told her I'd brainstorm with Daddy (I never brainstorm with Daddy, but it's nice to include him) and we would come up with a solution.
I went to bed with a plan.
Here is how it went down:
I found a cheap Uma dress-up jacket in the clearance at ToysRUs. It was the score that got the ball rolling. The jacket was sized for 6+, so I cut the sleeves off and took in the seams a little to help it fit, and then I layered it with one of Bug's long-sleeved purple shirts.
After that, we took a little trip to Hobby Lobby and, armed with coupons, I raided their ribbons. I purchased a gold beaded headband (a last minute find!), cut the ribbons to length, and hot glued them all to the headband to make a nifty little skirt that mimicked Uma's frayed dress!
The next day, Gavin and I braved the costume store (a madhouse, a madhouse!) for one single item- a pirate hat. Just as we figured, most of the pirate hats were equal to the cost of one costume. Wild. But this little guy, perched on the shelf, was only a couple of dollars and made for a child's head.
Of course, it looked nothing like Uma's hat, but my wheels were already turning to change all of that.
The skull and crossbones sticker peeled off easily (and has found a new home on the back of my phone case, might I add), and Gavin went to work on flexing and bending the brim to mold it into a more favorable shape.
Once we had it where we wanted it, I hot glued the brim to make a more triangular shape, and went to work adding a gold fringe to cover the white edges.
After the fringe was added, I spent the next two evenings braiding Uma's hair out of a multi-blue yarn I picked up from the Wal-Mart craft section. It took the entire $2 spool to cover enough for Molly's little head, so for an older child I would definitely suggest the jumbo spool for $5.
As the braids began to pile up, I started to strategically hot glue them to the inside of the hat. This ended up having the added benefit of providing cushion between the hat and Molly's head, because it was still too big, despite being a child's hat!
After the braids were glued in, I double-checked and added additional braids where any gaps had formed so that we had a nice, even amount of hair going around the entire head. Then, I moved on to the shells.
I hadn't caught a great glimpse of what was on Uma's hat. I only knew they were shiny and probably ocean-related. Molly later told me they were starfish, but she loved my own personal touch I added instead.
Being the mermaid-holic that I am, you can always find shells around my house. I bought a gigantic craft bag of them once and they just sort of started multiplying and popping up everywhere.
Here, I glued three shells together to adorn the Uma hat.
Before adding them go the hat, I painted them a metallic gold and added what was leftover of the ribbon used to make the fringe skirt, to help tie them together. Once dried, it was all hot glued to the hat and...
Fabulous. It came out absolutely fabulous!
On Halloween Day, it occurred to me that I had not made Uma's shell necklace (which was once Ursula's shell necklace that she used to trap Ariel's voice) so I plucked another shell, dug out some old gold ribbon, and painted the necklace on the front porch while I waited for Molly's bus to pull up.
(Yes, those are mermaid leggings)
With minutes to spare and trick or treating to do, I adorned our fabulous Uma with her seashell necklace and she posed for her official photo!
Isn't it great!? Halloween has yet to stump this crafty Momma!
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