I Love When a Plan Works

Quick! Look up! Find a shooting star and wish for my girls to always wear themed Halloween costumes because COME ON. IT'S AMAZING.

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers will forever be the best, but I really hope they keep trying to top it every year forever and ever. It's the best kind of goal, you know?

This year's entry as characters from Alice in Wonderland was, of course, Alexis' idea. Every year has been her doing. This time her theme also included some of her friends, but she left an opening for her baby sister to join in on the madness.

Thank goodness.

Mila as the Mad Hatter was all sorts of amazing, and I'm not just saying that because I scored her costume for $10 on ebay. That was just a lucky find that came about when I was looking for ideas on how to make it myself. A few clicks and a couple of bucks beats weeks of sewing ANY DAY.

Alexis' costume came about the same way. I thought I was going to sew, but then Amazon had it for $35 and WELP. Perfection.

So basically we have learned that I should never sew anything because the internet is full of magic.

And Alexis is really super good at figuring out costume themes.

It's worth noting that I realize that a plan will never again come together as easily as this one did. That's why I plan to wallow in its amazingness for weeks.

The Mad Hatter and The Queen of Hearts

'

 

Hi, Frank

Hello Internet, please allow me to introduce you to my new friend Frank.

Frank cost me about 10 cans of spray paint, 15 bottles of spray insulation, and two pairs of jeans (because I am an idiot and kept getting spray insulation on myself), but he is MAGNIFICENT. And worth every penny.

I mean, LOOK AT HIM! He's so pretty.

Frank is the culmination of about three years of plotting, but failing to actually do anything, and Mila. Oh, Mila. Mila gets a lot of credit for Frank because she super wanted to help me build a big spider. How could I possibly say no to a request like that?

Frank is 10 feet wide and about 3 feet tall. Next year he is going to get taller because I think I have figured out how to make him stand tall and proud as he makes his web. For now, though, he's quite lovely as he is.

::Happy Sigh::

If you'd like to make your own Frank, I'd like to point you towards a bunch of tutorials. I basically combined instructions from a few places:

Legs except that I used 3/4 inch PVC to save a few bucks. I also didn't bother to spray paint it before putting all of the pieces together. I didn't regret it.

By the way, spraying foam and watching it ooze out from fabric is perhaps one of my top 5 favorite things. It's soooo fun.

As long as it's warm outside, the foam keeps expanding for a few minutes so I figured out to make it "big enough" and then let it get BIGGER and more goopy and fantastic. I like that Frank is all sorts of bumpy and lumpy. He made a mess in our driveway when he got too drippy, but once the foam dried, it was easy to clean up.

Body except that the inside of my spider is garbage bags. There is a giant garbage bag filled with plastic shopping bags in the back and a smaller one again filled with shopping bags in the front. Both bags are covered in fabric and then sprayed with foam. The fabric was so the foam would have something to stick to, which worked marvelously.

His eyes are lawn stakes. I maybe permanently "ruined" them by embedding them in foam. SO WORTH IT.

I love you, Frank!