Although our entryway was mostly ready by the time October hit, there were still a few more things we wanted to add. The biggest of these were our lenticular prints. I ordered the prints for the kids from Walgreens, but they needed frames to really make them magical. After a trip to the craft store, Brian and I decided on these wooden squares to turn into frames. I made 3D designs out of hot glue, painted them with a black acrylic paint, and then dry brushed metallic paint onto them.
As long as you don't look too closely, the frames look amazing! We added them to the spooky lenticular photos we got at Michael's, as well as the special print we ordered off of Etsy of Brian and I from last year, and Ta-dah! Our gallery was complete.
Brian got an LED strip light from his boss, so he added it to the entryway to give it a little extra somethin' somethin'.
We landed on our Costume theme in either September or even August. This year, we were all Marvel Characters.
I made Gabe's shirt and pants, but ordered his mask and gloves from Amazon.
He liked the mask. Can you tell?
I used a swim shirt pattern from an Etsy shop for the shirt, and I loved how it came together, but I was pretty nervous to make the webs on it. I am pleased with how they turned out...as long as you don't look to closely!
I cut a spider design with my Cameo Silhouette. If I could have figured out how to do the webbing on the Cameo, I would have!
I used a pajama pants pattern for his pants and free-styled the curve of the contrasting red fabric. They came together like a dream. We even ordered him red shoes.
Rachel was Scarlett Witch. I used several different pieces from several different patterns to make her jacket/dress. That fabric is pretty tricky to work with, but I like how it came together in the end.
I tried finding a child mask to go with her costume, but the only one I could find that looked good came with its own costume. It was pretty inexpensive, but the picture looked good, so I ordered it. It didn't look as good in person. Michael ended up using it as a pattern to make a better one out of EVA foam. I ordered black leggings for her to complete the look, as well as black booties (she needed both of those things anyway.)
Brian's big goal was to make our coffin that we got last year open and close like someone was inside. He ordered a motor and other magic parts to make it happen.
Michael got to work making Thor's hammer. Don't worry, Mom, as soon as I saw his workstation, I made him move it. My cedar chest is NOT a workbench!
This year, we took advantage of the talents of Etsy sellers. We bought several patterns there from Spiderman's swim shirt to Thor's armor. It required lots of printer paper and tape to make the files into a working pattern.
I bought an actual witch hat this year since it's weirdly one of the only Halloween staples that I didn't used to own. Here's Michael modeling it. Maybe one year we'll do more traditional costumes.
As I mentioned, Brian was tasked with making Thor's armor. And not just regular Thor's armor, but also Mighty Thor's armor. It was quite the tedious process! Lots of cutting with an Exacto Knife, gluing, painting, and other stuff that I don't know about.
While my mom was here, she made our Thor capes. Here I am trying it on.
She also fought the fickle pleather material to make a black vest for Michael to be Hawkeye. Here we all are, hard at work making costumes.
I really appreciated the fact that even though my mom was never into Halloween, she understood that it was something that really mattered to me. We couldn't have finished our costumes without her moral support and sewing help!
Here's more armor progress:
Finally, we got to the point where we could paint the armor.
We finished the Armor pieces just in time for our Halloween Party! Phew!
