SLPco Showcase: Costume Parade with Amber
The SLPco Showcase is a regular blog series at the Simple Life Pattern Company blog where we feature our talented fans, bloggers, and boutique owners! Read along as Amber from My Sugar Bear Boutique shares her amazing costume creations using all SLPco patterns! You can follow Amber and her gorgeous creations on Instagram here.
Let me start by admitting that writing this blog has made me swell with pride, but not for the reason you may think. Of course, it was a huge honor to be asked to guest blog for The Simple Life Pattern Company, and I MAY have done a little happy dance and called to brag to my mom when they asked me. But, ok, let’s be honest… the real reason I’m strutting around my house like a pageant queen with a “Miss Mom America” sash is because:
I MADE HALLOWEEN COSTUMES FOR MY CHILDREN… IN SEPTEMBER. That’s right. Done.
I taught myself to sew during a snowstorm in 2012. Hooray for YouTube! I immediately posted all my fabulous creations to Facebook (though, they were slightly crooked… and I didn’t know what topstitching was yet… or the importance of an iron … ok, they were a hot mess…).
Almost immediately, I began to get this…
“This is great, now you can make Halloween Costumes for your girls!”
“Awe, my mom always sewed my Halloween costumes.”
“I’ll bet you can’t wait to make some adorable Halloween Costumes for those girls.”
Wait, what? Ok, first of all, I am a “better late than never” kind of mom, so I kind of figured we’d always be that family in Walmart on October 30th fishing through the leftovers and begging our youngest daughter to be Darth Vader (“He’s on Star Wars, honey. It’s a movie. He’s cool. Really. No really, you ARE Darth Vader, that’s all that’s left.”)
BUT NOT THIS YEAR, LADIES!!! I invited my good friend and amazing hair and makeup artist, Ana and her daughter, Jayleen (3) to join us. The girls and I had a little pow wow about what they wanted to be this year. Cami, my 7 year old, wanted to be a flapper (it is beyond me how she knows about flappers) and Maddyn, my 9 year old, wanted to be a movie star. A quick google search showed me that Cami did indeed know what a flapper was (“See mom? Beads, fringe, and headband. Simple!”) and Maddyn went gaga over the first image we saw of Audrey Hepburn in her pearls and crown. Jayleen is pretty much obsessed with Toy Story, so that was a no-brainer. Then we scrolled through all the patterns I’ve been collecting from SLPCo, and it took all of about five minutes to decide. The flapper was obvious… Hailey’s Drop Waist.
Toy Story’s Jessie needed something that would be girly and comfy for a three year old who is ALL OVER THE PLACE, but also would work with a shirt under it in case it’s chilly for Trick or Treating… Bella’s Dress and Maxi with its elastic back was the perfect choice!
Finally, Maddyn selected Ayda for Audrey, because we love the elegant back and classy look.
Once we had our ideas ironed out, I was able to buy materials and make all three dresses in just a couple of evenings. Being that they are costumes, I knew the dresses would probably only be worn once or twice, so I shopped the sales at Hobby Lobby and stuck to the simpler versions of the patterns. The most time consuming part was Jessie’s bodice detail, but even that didn’t take a lot of effort when (EUREKA!!) I decided to use quilt basting spray!! It all left me wondering why I’d put off this rite of sewing passage for so many years.
Ok, let’s be honest, I am still the Queen of Procrastination… and I certainly can’t promise that next year you won’t find me fishing through costume-in-a-bag piles in Walgreen’s the morning of Halloween… BUT, I will say that this experience has taught me it is a heck of a lot more fun to CREATE something with my children… oh and how they SQUEALED over them when I was done!
Mom-ing ain’t easy, but I have to say, my girls and I kind of rocked Halloween this year! Did I mention, it’s only September?
