Handmade Halloween: Black Widow Spider

I love making Halloween costumes when I can; I've been doing it for ages (see a list of costumes I've put together for myself in this post here). This year, the kids were inspired by a photo I showed them from Facebook of a baby dressed up as a spider. I was pretty excited, as this spider costume has been on my bucket list for a long time, since my sister did it when she was in elementary school.

Socks + googly eyes + felt + old pool noodle + hoodie + xacto knife + glue gun + needle & thread = black widow spider costume. #handmadehalloween #diy

A video posted by Lisa Corriveau (@spokesmama) on Oct 31, 2016 at 2:28pm PDT

After mulling it over for a bit, I picked up most of my supplies at our local dollar store. This is the materials to make TWO spider costumes:

• four pairs of black men's socks
• a bag of googly eyes
• a sheet of black glitter felt
• a sheet of red glitter felt

Other supplies that I had on hand were:

• black thread & needle
• hot glue gun & glue sticks
• embroidery floss
• scissors
• Xacto knife
• old pool noodle (a thick one)
• two black hoodies or jackets
• black pants, shoes, gloves

The process is pretty simple, not a lot of sewing skill required. It took me about two to three hours total. You could do it much faster if you used hot glue or fabric glue or even staples to stick things together, but I used Linny's regular jacket & hoodie, so I wanted this all to be easily removable tomorrow.

1. Cut out two segments of pool noodle that are the same length as the socks. Slice them into quarters lengthwise so you have eight long skinny pieces of pool noodle. If you can't find a thick pool noodle, you could use a regular one & cut it into halves or thirds.
2. If you want slightly thinner arms as I did, turn the socks inside out & sew a seam from the top of the heel all the way to the toe, about 2-3cm in from the edge. Turn right side out & stuff pool noodle sections into the socks.
3. Sew the open ends of the socks to the side seams of the hoodies/jackets. Sew the red hourglass shape to the front of the chest (or the back, if you're really going for biological accuracy). I stitched just one side on & then safety pinned the other side down since both jackets had a zipper down the front.
4. To make the fake arms move with the child's real ones, use the embroidery floss to sew through the pool noodles, leaving 5-10 cm between each noodle & knotting the thread on each arm, then attaching it to the underside of the wrist of their jacket.
5. Fold both felt sheets in half & cut two hourglass shapes from the two red pieces for the black widow marking; two semicircular pieces from the black for the head/mask. Cut a jagged edge along the flat side of the black semicircles to create fangs.
6. Hot glue the googly eyes to the black mask part, (I did six large ones, but you could do more, or different sizes too) then safety pin it to the top of the hood. Alternatively, you could cut eye holes in the mask before hot gluing the googly eyes, then attach elastic straps to the sides to create a half mask. 

Voila! Black widow spider costume, times two. This cost me less than $10 in supplies. It's going to be warm--Linny's costume is his winter coat, Bronte's is her brother's big hoodie which she'll wear over her winter coat--but light so they won't get tired. In theory, I could remove the seams out of the socks & Oliver could use them later. The pool noodle I used was an old one that had been degraded by sunlight & no longer floats properly. I will probably convert the masks with an elastic strap & put them into the "Tickle Trunk" for the kids to wear another time. 

Did you make Halloween costumes this year or in the past? Tell me about it!

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Halloween

Ready to head out the door

Bee & Owl trick or treating 2015

Every year since Linnaeus could walk, we've gone trick-or-treating at Halloween. The first year, we only went to a few houses on our way to a house party--he was only 14 months old, after all--netting us a reasonable amount of chocolates he could eat & a few for us. The next year, we went to some of the houses in our neighbourhood. The block we live on has a handful of homes that decorate with fake cobwebs & plastic spiders, jack-o-lanterns & orange lights, but the majority don't even give out candy. This means that the few children who do knock on the doors get showered with handfuls of treats.

The year Linny was three, his haul, though not from all that many houses, was a bit ridiculous. We "took care of" some of it without him noticing, but the bucket of sugary stuff lasted a long time. Last year, we discovered a great option to cut down the stash & boy did we need to. This was Bronte's first year actively participating in the holiday. She was walking, starting to talk, & excited to be dressed up as a bat. Linnaeus & Bronte both loved trick-or-treating & did not want to stop knocking on doors.

Enter the Switch Witch. I can't remember where I heard about her--Pinterest? Facebook? Twitter?--but I thought it was a brilliant idea immediately. Basically, the Switch Witch will come to your house the day after Halloween & trade your child a toy for some of their candy. We got Linnaeus to sort out the candy he wanted to give to her & he actually picked out about half of his stash. We had him leave the offering in a big bowl on the kitchen table. When he woke up on November 2, he went into the kitchen to find a little Lego set sitting in the bowl on the table. He was pretty happy with the trade & we got rid of a lot of his candy.

Dye experiments in 2014

This year after our two adorable children went from house to house in their fuzzy Halloween costumes, we ended up with a huge stash of candy. My concern this year is what to do with the candy that they sort out for the Switch Witch. Last year, we hid it in a cupboard & ate it bit by bit after they were in bed. But this year, I don't want it around. Most of the treats are really cheap chocolate or just sugary artificially coloured crap. Since I've been eating better, I do indulge in treats fairly often, but I try to go for better quality stuff like higher end chocolate or homemade cookies when I do.

Last year we took many of the more brightly coloured candies & did some experiments to get the colours out of them, in conjunction with a project Linnaeus was working on with his preschool. I've also seen art projects using the dyes from candies like Skittles, so maybe we'll try something like that this year.

What about you? Do you take your kids trick-or-treating? If they end up with a massive stash of candy, how do you deal with it? 

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Why Halloween Sucks (But I love it anyway)

For this week's Listicles, I couldn't decide if I wanted to talk about the best or the worst of Halloween. So I did both. Five things I hate about the holiday & five things I love about it. Truth be told though, the 'love' side wins for me--I really love Halloween.

Things I hate about Halloween:

Seriously?!? Who designs these costumes?

1. Sexy girls' costumes. Why, oh why, do four-year-olds need shiny, short-skirted, totally unrealistic dress versions of firefighter or police costumes? If you're 19 & you want to dress like that to go to a nightclub, well, fine. Your choice. But why in the world should we sexualize small children this way? (At least Value Village responded by removing these crappy costumes)
2. Narrow gender roles. Everywhere I've looked at costumes, there's a girls' rack & a boys' rack. The girls get weirdly sexed up skimpy dress versions of the boys costumes, plus several variations on princess. The boys get superhero & first responder. What happened to ghosts, zombies, pumpkins, black cats, witches & all that scary stuff?
3. Crappy quality halloween treats. When I was a kid, we still got the occasional candy apple, popcorn ball or other homemade treat from neighbours. Now everyone is so afraid of anything not hermetically sealed, so anything like that would just get thrown away before any child touched it. It's all high fructose corn syrup & numbered food dyes nowadays.
4. Unfair trade candy. Sadly, much of what North Americans spend millions of dollars buying to hand out (or eat surreptitiously in the weeks  before Halloween) is made using unethical labour practices in developing countries.
5. Plastic waste. Plastic bags from individually wrapped candy. Plastic packaging from cheap, essentially disposable Halloween costumes. 

L's 1st Halloween. I made him a hooded skeleton sleeper.

Things I love about Halloween:

1. Dress up. I love planning out, & designing costumes, then pretending to be a character. I love seeing my kids in cute costumes.
2. Sugarsugarsugar! I have a sweet tooth, & even though a lot of the candy we get is crap, & I know it's terrible for our teeth & health, I still kinda love it. Though this year I think we might try some art projects with the particularly colourful stuff. 
3. A good scare. I don't believe in ghosts or all that supernatural stuff, but there's something about the feeling of the unknown, the adrenaline rush from hearing exploding fireworks & someone in a scary mask jumping out at you, the connection with the past & the dead that I think is healthy. 
4. A creative opportunity. Most years I have dressed up in outfits that I made or at least customized myself. I like decorating for Halloween when I have the time to do it & I always carve a pumpkin or three. As the kids get older, that gets to be even more fun to involve them in the jack-o-lantern creation too.
5. Ritual & tradition. Not everyone gives out candy & not everyone goes trick-or-treating, but most people participate in this tradition, I think. It's one of those things we all have in common in Canada. In a society where there are so many different cultures & traditions, where we speak many different languages in our homes, eat many different comfort foods, but we all went trick-or-treating as kids, right?

How about you? What do you love or hate most about Halloween?

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Halloween Safety with Toddlers & Preschoolers: Four Tips

I got an email from Health Canada today with a link to this page detailing a fairly exhaustive set of safety tips for Halloween. But reading through, it dawned on me that a lot of it is aimed at families with older children. Our four-year-old & one-year-old are a whole other kettle of fish! So I thought I'd share with you some of the things that we do to keep these two monkeys safe around Halloween.

1
Skip the candles. Burns from hot wax or fires caused by knocking over candles are a danger, whether you have kids or pets or none of the above. We use either LED 'tea lights' in our jack-o-lanterns, or bike lights. The bike lights are kinda cool, as they create a red glow & can be set to flash too.

2

Keep the costumes simple. Flowy costumes can catch fire or trip kids. Masks make it hard to see & walk. Now I love making things, especially costumes, so I have to reign in my tendencies to go overboard on the costumes for my kids. Luckily, having two children means I don't have the time to make them intricate outfits. The last few years Linnaeus has worn the practical two-piece costumes like the ones you get from Old Navy. He's been a bat, an elephant, & a fox. All of them left his face free so he could see & walk well. They were warm & toasty for the chilly damp trick-or-treating & watching fireworks. Plus they're durable to hand down to siblings, cousins, & friends or consign, & washable afterward.

3
Contain the kids. Traffic safety is a big thing on Halloween night. We're going to try something new this year now that we've got two walking children: a castle on wheels! Whaaa? Okay, let me go back a step. We're going to decorate our wagon to look like a castle for our little dragon & bat to ride in for the longer gaps between houses (a lot of people in our area don't give out treats, so there's more walking involved than some neighbourhoods) & crossing the streets. I picked up some glow-in-the-dark tape to add to the cardboard ramparts we'll attach on the outside of the wagon & we may tie on some bike lights as well, just for good measure.

4
Do the old switcheroo. My four-year-old is able to handle most types of candy that we'll probably encounter this Halloween, but I don't trust my one-year-old not to choke on small, chewy or hard sweets. I bought a bag of plain chocolate that I'll trade for some of the candy she won't be able to eat so she still gets to participate. I will see if my son wants to trade with his little sister too. Truth be told, they're both still young enough that I can get away with 'pruning' their supply of trick-or-treating candy, so I may make some of it disappear myself after they've gone to bed.

Have you got any further suggestions on Halloween safety for little kids? I'd love to see them in the comments below...

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#ThriftOrTreat at Value Village (+ Giveaway!)

Halloween is tied with Christmas for my favorite holiday, but only because I like giving presents. Otherwise Halloween would totally win. The decorations, the costume making, the pumpkin carving, the candy, the fireworks, the history--I love it all.

Obviously, I was excited to take part in a blogger Halloween Shopping Spree at Value Village last week. Value Village has been my go-to costume store for years. I've honesty lost track of all the great scores I've found there.

At the #ThriftOrTreat Blogger event I was given $50 to spend, so I stocked up on costume bits & decorations. I bought:

• Three styrofoam tombstones $14
• A skeleton light string $2
• Large & small fairy/butterfly wings $17
• Spiderweb decoration $4
• A braided viking beard $5
• Grey rose "goth bouquet" $6

I'm excited about the decorations--I think they'll look great out front. We don't get a huge number of kids trick-or-treating here, but I still like to decorate for the holiday. As for the costume parts I found, Linnaeus has already worn the small pair of butterfly wings every day since I got them. They'll be a year round part of the kids' "Tickle Trunk".

If you haven't got your costume(s) all sorted out for this Halloween, head over to your nearest Value Village & take a look. Every store has several costume consultants available to help you with ideas. Besides the huge selection of secondhand costumes, clothing & accessories, Value Village is fully stocked with new costumes, makeup, wigs, accessories, & decorations.

If you want to see other people's costume ideas & scores at Value Village or share your own, use the #ThriftOrTreat hashtag on Twitter & Instagram. Once you're all set, take photos of yourself in costume & upload them here to enter the Value Village Costume Contest for a chance to win a Value Village Shopping Voucher worth $100, $250, or even $500!

If that wasn't enough fun, I've also got a $100 giveaway for you! Follow the instructions in the Rafflecopter Widget below & let me know if you have any questions! Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

For news & updates from Value Village, follow @SaversVVillage on Twitter, or like them on Facebook.com/ValueVillage.


Disclaimer: I was given a $50 gift certificate to spend at Value Village to facilitate this review, but was not otherwise compensated for writing this post. The words & opinions above are my own.

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Bats: What We Should Really Be Afraid Of

Photo Credit: Vermin Inc via Compfight cc

Bats range in size from the world’s smallest mammal, the bumblebee bat, to the 6-foot wingspans of the flying fox. Our native bats are small, most weighing about the same as a few pennies. They eat thousands of insects each night, which saves farmers millions of dollars on insect control and crop damage. Bats are the most organic form of insect control there is.

Despite their usefulness to humans, bats get a bad rap. They've been associated with Halloween and vampires for years, portrayed as little monsters, or at the very least pests, but they're really not scary animals at all. What we should really fear this Halloween is their extinction.

I've been a bit strapped for time, but I really wanted to pass on this info, so here's a press release in its entirety, from the Nature Conservancy of Canada & the Sustainable Forestry Initiative about bats and the real monster in this story: White Nose Syndrome.

Last-Minute Hallowe'en Costume Ideas

No handmade costume this year: bought this one at Old Navy.

This year, due to Bronte's arrival, I haven't made a costume for Linnaeus. Or or Bronte, for that matter. I do have Linnaeus' baby skeleton costume that would fit her & his bat costume for next year, but
I hadn't really figured out what to do until last week. I asked him what he wanted to be, but he is still a bit young to really get into the holiday in advance. When I saw that Old Navy had costumes on sale, I showed him the pictures of them & we decided on a fox outfit. It should arrive today--just in time for Hallowe'en.

If you're a procrastinator like me & you haven't got a costume for your child(ren) yet, not to worry: I've got some ideas for you.

• Collage Collage, a local children's art studio, put together five different simple costumes based on a hoodie with the addition of a little felt, cardboard &/or pompoms. None of the costumes require sewing, either. See all five looks here.
• Last year, I put together a list of ten hand-made costumes that I liked from various sources: Martha Stewart, Threadbanger & a couple of my own, including the aforementioned baby skeleton sleeper. Here's the link to that post.
• Last year I also wrote a post about how to save money on Hallowe'en costumes. Check it out here.

What are your kids dressing up as for Hallowe'en this year? Have you got any great resources or costume ideas to share? Leave them in the comments below!

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