Ooohh Halloween!

I used to hate Halloween. When I say hate, I mean loathe.  I thought it was stupid, not worth my time, etc. Very Negative Nancy about the whole thing.  Within the past three years though I've given my hatred and started embracing the holiday for the fun that it can be.

Last year, I went as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.  I found a dog's turtle costume for the shell (golden retriever sized) and then used a dress of my own that I know fits well as a template for the green dress that I wore.  The mask was the hardest part and looked pretty bad. But, last year at this time, I was very new to sewing and my skills were rough. Very rough.

But I still think my costume looked better than the ones I found online...

Mine (you stay classy)

Theirs. A-hem.

But I digress.  This year I wanted to do something feminine, like the ninja turtle dress, but again fun and not-so-slutty.  I found this gem on Pinterest but could not for the life of me find the pattern anywhere (only a former listing for it on etsy).  

So dorky. So cool.

So I again busted out the same $7 Good Will dress (that I look pretty smokin' in) to use as a template.  I found grey stretchy fabric and some regular black from Hobby Lobby.  Let me get this out of the way: If you're never sewn with stretchy material before, practice first.  I would have saved myself so many headaches and cursing fits if I had. This material sucked, I ended up stitching multiple holes by hand and getting frustrated beyond belief. I find out later that I also was using the wrong type of needle... *facepalm*.  Each of my projects I tend to learn something new about sewing...

Notice the circle and plus sign template? Highly recommend doing that if you're serious about making this costume look awesome. I also Googled an image of the original Game Boy just to be safe (didn't want drunk nerds at a Halloween party yelling at me!)

  

Since I don't have much in the way of boobs, I added straps so I wouldn't give everyone a free show at the party.  That being said, the dress is also a lot looser and longer than the original one on Pinterest.... and I'm OK with that.

Now, I could have left it at that but my hubby wanted me to jazz it up a bit. I found a couple days before Halloween Tetris and Pac Man fabric, but it wouldn't have gotten here in time. But I'm definitely keeping an open mind to buying a yard of that and just stitching it to the screen next year.  What we did instead worked... but I think it actually took away from the awesomeness that is this costume.  We used Blockus pieces (a boardgame) glued to a white piece of paper and safety pinned onto the screen. =\ As I said... should have just left it as it was.

Ahhh well... live and learn. Happy Halloween!