October is a busy time around here.  Given that my girls’ birthdays are 5 days apart on top of the fact that Halloween is then only weeks away, I go until I run out of gas.  I have had very little time to work lately. But that doesn’t mean I’ve had a lack of things to do.  On top of planning a Mickey Mouse themed birthday party, I made Isabella a much requested Cinderella dress for Halloween.

Confession Time

Now let me stop right now.  I have a confession.  I do not like sewing princess dresses.  Now, I’m not one of those that are against princess culture.  I am a girly girl and princesses tend to come with the territory.  They just don’t inspire me much.

There are loads of patterns out there for princess dresses. I just didn’t feel like I could add much to what is already existing.  That also leads me to my second confession: I HATE sewing costumes.  I know, I know.  That goes against all sacred oaths of moms that sew. But honestly, I hate it.  To be honest, I’m really not sure why.

I guess my biggest part is because I spend hours upon hours of time and materials. And then only for them to wear them twice.  A friend of mine said once my littles get old enough to play dress up that will change.  I hope so.

Either way, when a little girl looks at your with her big brown eyes and says, “Mommy, I want to be Cinder-wella for Hawoween!”… You move heaven and earth to make that happen.  I know.  I’m a mom.  Which also means I’m a sucker for making my kids happy.  Dang it.  I guess that meant I was making a princess costume.

What I COULD have done

Now in hindsight, I should have done the practical thing that any mom who doesn’t sew would have done. I should have dragged my butt down to the Disney store and bought a Cinderella dress.  Yea, that isn’t what happened.

The other thing I should have done was just bought a pattern for a Cinderella dress from one of my designer friends. The kind that already has all the kinks worked out.  Yeah, again, that isn’t what happened.  I’m a glutton for punishment I guess.

In my head, I didn’t want to make Isabella a dress.  I wanted to make her a top and a skirt.  You see, we are on the tail end of potty training.  While Isabella rarely has an accident, we do still have moments of, “I’ve got to go, and I’ve got to go right NOW.”  Not the easiest problem to have. Especially when you are wearing a big puffy ballgown.  I thought making the bottom a skirt would be easier.  So that’s what I did.

What ended up happening

I must say this is probably the most “homemade” garment I’ve ever made.  My finishes are a little rough, my stitches are a little wonky, but for the two times she will wear it along with my complete disdain for sewing princess costumes, it will do.

Unfortunately the bottom “V” of the bodice in combination of the puffiness of the skirt makes the bodice bunch up and not always lay nice.  Now if I planned to make this into a pattern to sell, I would fix it.  But since it’s for Halloween and I was so relieved to be done with this project, I am not.  ha ha.  My daughter doesn’t care, so night do I.

After spending hours making my oldest princess a princess dress, I decided to do the practical thing and bought my baby Lilly a dress for her Cabbage Patch wig I bought off Etsy.  On a side note, the wig was totally worth the price paid if only for the pure joy of watching her crawl around with it on.  She looks hilarious.  So much so, that we even went out to dinner the other night with her wearing it just to get laughs from people around us.  Not many people expect to see a baby with a yarn wig on their head, even if it is October.

Enough with my rambling, let’s get to the good stuff.  We took the kiddos to pick out pumpkins at the pumpkin patch (which really is just an excuse to dress them up and take their picture.)  And the cuteness of the photos makes it all worth the effort.

Adorable, right?  Ok moms, what did you end up making your kids for Halloween this year?  Let me know in the comments.