Costume Contest

Last Halloween Jillian was around a month old and it was freaking hard to find a teeny tiny costume. Not that they don’t exist but every time I found a costume that I liked it was either 0-6 month and she would have been eaten by it or 0-3 month was sold out. Apparently everyone had teeny tiny babies like me and oddly, had the exact same cat obsession.

Here she is, only mildly being eaten by the 0-3 month costume.

But once she was in her car seat you couldn’t even tell what the frick she was. With the nuk and sleepy, beady eyes she could pass as a pig…with a tumor on its left leg. In the stroller? Forgetaboutit. In fact, a few people asked what the hell she was dressed as. Between the tray, the straps and Jillian just kind of laying there and not making cat noises, I would probably have been confused too.




This year, we’re going to make sure that when people set eyes on my kid, they are going to be damn sure of what she is. I saw a stroller cover on Pinterest but it was an umbrella stroller cover that looked like cheese and the baby was a mouse. Cue lightbulb. Child + grey costume squished and deformed by stroller = ???? BUT Child = grey costume squished and deformed by stroller + related stroller cover = Mouse in cheese! Duh, that baby is a mouse!

So in order to also have a “Duh, that baby is a ________” moment we too needed a stroller cover of awesomeness. Even though Jillian is walking her preferred method of motion is still crawling and we need a stroller and if in two weeks time she is all “I’m going to walk everywhere. I’m not going to crawl motherfucker!” then too friggen’ bad because I already made the stroller cover and your costume is not conducive to walking anyway. Or crawling for that matter. Anyone have a guess what she’s going to be?

Anyway, I bought a buttload of felt (the stuff on the bolt, not the tiny 9x12 sheets for like 29 cents) and just started measuring and cutting and then sewing. I thought felt was the best way to go since it’s hecka cheap and felt seems a lot less intimidating to me than regular fabric. Like tulle or something. I mean, it’s felt for christ’s sake and children use it and having about the same crafting abilities as a child, it was the obvious choice.

Now I don’t know about you but I’m no good at the sewing business, (hell I hand sewed because I can’t figure out the sewing machine I have and let’s be honest, it’s a little scary) but I managed to make a pretty good and well fitted cover for the background. After that was done it was time to transform my blue cover into the ocean backdrop I needed for my little mermaid. I made fish and a turtle, some starfish and what I thought was an octopus but later remembered that octopi have 8 legs and not 5 so I decided if anyone got technical on me it was a squid. Problems there too. Squid have 6 legs so I still don’t know what the fuck it is but it lives in the ocean, okay?!

I started on the mermaid top but it turned out looking like a bow and not a bikini-ish mermaid top even after I hot glued it to the plain shirt I got. Yes, hot glue. Sewing is hard. Even though I’m too scurred to use a sewing machine, in my head this costume was going to be so cool and look just like the pictures I found of mermaids on the internets. It didn’t. Since the fabric for the mermaid tail is shiny and slippery and was $8/yd in addition to the interfacing that was $12/yard that I needed to make it stiff so it will hold its shape instead of just laying there. After the mishap with the bra piece, I wasn’t about to mess up $20 bucks worth of fabric. So I’m going to have our family friend help me out and make it look legit. Once everything is done and the cover is on and Jillian is mermaided and in the stroller I will definitely share photos and of course, our many costume contest trophies.

What are you or your kids dressing up as? Do you have two kids and a husband and you’re going to go as pieces of a sandwich??