A Pinocchio Halloween

I love Halloween! It's my favorite holiday. I usually feel slightly guilty for saying that because it's obviously not as meaningful as Christmas, Easter, or Thanksgiving. It doesn't have a rich, patriotic history like Independence Day. It doesn't even cause you to reflect and set new goals like New Year's Day. But I can't help it. It's my favorite. There's just something about pumpkin cookies and spooky decorations that gets me really excited. And the costumes! I love a good reason to get creative and dress up. Halloween is the perfect time to dress up and play pretend all day long. And if you've got kids, you can dress them up HOWEVER YOU WANT! I've decided I really need to maximize on the years when I get to choose my children's costumes.

See? Halloween decorations are SO CUTE!

Last year I spent WAY too long browsing blogs and Pinterest for costume ideas but finally settled on a Pinocchio theme. It was just way too cute. It turned out to be quite the project to make his little costume, but it turned out so great. My two main inspirations came from For the Good Days (who breaks down each part of the costume) and Crafting Zuzzy (who helped me make the killer shorts and suspenders).

I'm glad he was as excited about his costume as I was

I like to call this my Goldilocks costume because the shorts took me three tries. I used her free pattern and the first pair were way too small. I tried to adapt the pattern on my own and the second pair came out way too big. I adjusted the pattern again and the third pair came out just right. It was a lot of work, y'all! She has updated her blog and you can now purchase some updated patterns and it might really be worth it!

I added some cool ribbon to the sides of the shorts to make them a bit more like Pinocchio's shorts and loved that it made them more authentic. A couple of large wooden buttons really completed the look.

I used an old white shirt for the collar and followed For the Good Days' DIY description. It took a little fiddling to get the sizing just right, but was pretty simple to sew. I've made lots of little boy bow ties and for the Pinocchio costume, I just made an extra large bow tie. I added some snaps to the collar and tie so I could just snap it on or slip it over his head. I found the yellow onesie for a few bucks at H&M.

The hat was definitely a little tricky. I looked at lots of pictures and costumes before drawing up my own pattern on some yellow felt and playing around with it until I came up with a shape I was happy with. I added some blue ribbon with hot glue and stuck in a single red feather.

I love a good theme so of course we had to play along. Jacob was a good trooper and let me dress him as Jiminy Cricket and I went as the Blue Fairy.

"I dub you Pinocchio's conscience, lord high keeper of the knowledge of right and wrong, counselor in moments of high temptation, and guide along the straight and narrow path. Arise, Sir Jiminy Cricket." It seemed appropriate that Pinocchio's father should be Jiminy.

"Prove yourself brave, truthful, and unselfish, and someday, you will be a real boy."
-The Blue Fairy

Our costumes were pretty easy. I had made Jacob's pants a couple years ago for a 20's costume party and he already owned the socks, shirt, tie, and sweater. I sewed a very basic yellow vest (since it wouldn't show much) and hot glued some yellow ribbon on a blue top hat I bought at a Halloween store. I still had this amazing blue dress that I found at DI for a 70's party years ago. I knew it would come in handy again and I'm sure glad I held onto it. I bought the wings on clearance at Joann Fabrics and just added a blue headband.

"What are conscience! I'll tell ya! A conscience is that still, small voice that people
won't listen to. That's just the trouble with the world today..." -Jiminy Cricket

Everything came together so well! Pinocchio is a classic character, but not done very often. And it sure made a cute costume for my happy little guy!

Curious to know what we're doing for Halloween this year? I've got something great up my sleeve, so stay tuned to find out what happens!

A Triumph over Decorating Paralysis: Part Two

*To see the background for these projects, read part one here.

The first big decision was made and I was feeling pretty good. Turning the idea of a theme into a concrete plan, however, was a long and tricky process. Turning that plan into an actual room took even embarrassingly longer. Part two of my triumph was overcoming the infinite choices of fabrics and paints to get some color on the walls and some curtains on the windows.  

1.  Start with the fabric. If you’ve ever seen an episode of Sarah’s House on HGTV, you know that when decorating a room, you absolutely must start with the fabrics.

2.  Visit every local fabric store trying to find the perfect fabric (one that is both adorable and affordable). If you don’t find anything, scour the internet until your eyeballs bleed and then become overwhelmed by the millions of options.

3.  Create a digital image of the room so you can cut/paste pictures of different options. This will help you visualize your options. Mull over them for a few weeks, narrow your choices, and eventually pick one (even if you don’t ultimately follow it exactly).

Make sure you're OCD about lining up the squares of fabric
on the curtains so they look as realistic as possible.
These fabric samples are courtesy of fabric.com.

4.  Pull the trigger and order the fabrics. Stop second guessing or wondering if there’s a cuter fabric out there for a better price. If you do, you’ll wait too long and the main fabric you were going to order will be out of stock and you’ll have to pay more to order it from a different website (D’oh!).

5.  Choose a coordinating color to paint the room. I chose gray.

6.  Realize that the color you chose only slightly narrows down your actual paint options (seriously, do you know how many shades of gray there are? Trust me, there are more than fifty).

7.  Talk to the really nice lady at the paint store and let her help you hone in on a shade. The color you thought you wanted (found from a cool pin about the perfect neutral colors to use in your home) will probably look too green when compared with the yellows you plan to use. Paint Lady will have the answer and even explain the differences between the aisles and aisles of paints that they offer.

I chose Ozark Shadows from Benjamin Moore.  It's a medium gray so it's dark enough
you know it's gray but not so dark it makes the room feel like a cave.  I loved it!

8.  Watch a bunch of online tutorials on how to paint a room (some of these will contradict each other and they will most likely assume you are not a beginner who knows absolutely nothing about painting, so see step 9).

9.  Make several calls to your sister to fill in the blanks. She will also be able to provide you the moral support necessary to purchase all the materials and actually get started painting (which, it turns out, is a lot more difficult than it is in The Sims).

10.  After a few days of hard work, sit back and appreciate your masterpiece (and try not to worry about that message from your landlord telling you that the color you just used to paint the room is too dark and you need to choose a different color… but that’s a story for another time).

In part three I'll reveal the fabulous curtains I made with the new fabric! (Spoiler Alert: They pretty much look just like the curtains in the sample room pic above).

Photo credits:

paint buckets

shades of gray

ozark shadows 1

ozark shadows 2

ozark shadows 3

relaxation

A Triumph over Decorating Paralysis: Part One

Remember when you were little and everyone used to always ask you what you wanted to be when you grew up?  Like me, your career of choice probably changed many times as you were figuring out your interests, hobbies, and skills.  When I was in sixth grade, it seemed everyone wanted to be a veterinarian, a marine biologist, or an interior decorator.  At one time or another, each of these seemed to be my destiny, too.  Why, I’ll never know.  I don’t like animals enough to plan on ever want a pet, I rarely go swimming because I hate having wet hair and dried out skin, and I suffer from SEVERE decorating paralysis (it’s totally a thing; Google it).  Thank goodness we don’t have to pick our future when we’re 11. 

Marine biology does look pretty glorious.

I think I finally crossed “interior decorator” off my list the summer after The Sims came out in 2000. I spent far too many of my lazy summer days playing this extremely addicting game in which you create a family of Sims by choosing what they look like, what they wear, and their personalities.  You then use money that they earn at their jobs to build and decorate a house for them from scratch.  I found the decorating fun, entertaining, and actually pretty overwhelming.  I mean, do I start with the cool black and white tile?  Or find something that matches the fun, bright red wallpaper?  Or maybe I should decorate around the sleek and modern lime green sofa.  There were just so many options!!   And the paralysis tells me that once I pick something, I can’t change it.  The direction is decided and the only place to go is forward.  So DON’T SCREW IT UP!

See the black and white tile?  I told you it was cool.

This is the same pressure I feel when I try to look at shower curtains, rugs, and bookshelves.  The paralysis means I have a very hard time knowing how to start decorating my home.  I contemplate various colors, themes, and styles and then worry that once I start, I will hate it and be stuck with it.  So, I generally put off making a real decision for as long as I can.  And then I usually end up sticking to neutrals.  You can’t go too wrong with neutrals, right?

When I found out we were having a little boy, I was so excited to turn our spare bedroom into his nursery… until I remembered that I am awful at decorating.  The Pinterest boards were crushing me with their millions of cute options.  However, I now live to tell the tale of how I overcame those overwhelming feelings and prevailed over my paralysis to create a room that I am quite proud of, thank you very much.  In honor of moving in one week, I want to share this beauty that I finally finished just before Memorial Day (I know, he was born before Christmas!). 

It took me several months to finally settle on a theme.  I knew I wanted something more gender neutral that didn’t scream “BABY!” and came across one theme that never seemed to leave the back of my mind.  I think I fell in love with it because it always reminds me of my own childhood and my mother.  She often sang songs to me when she tucked me in for bed and throughout the day.  She loved to sing “You Are My Sunshine” and started leaving the last word of each line for us to sing.  She would sing, “You are my ___” and we were supposed to fill in the blank by singing, “sunshine.”  It was a fun game that always made us smile.  Sometimes, when my younger brothers were in a cantankerous mood, they would fill in all the blanks by shouting, “nothing” instead.  It usually made us giggle until no one was grouchy anymore.

I have always planned on sharing that song (and tradition) with my own kids, so I loved the idea of doing his room full of yellows and sunshine.  Deciding on the theme really got the ball rolling and gave me lots of ideas for the projects I wanted to complete for his room.  I was so excited to have him here.  He certainly was the bright spot of my year and continues to make me smile every day, when skies are gray, blue, and everything in between.  

Some inspiration

Love this print