Hammerhead

I took a trip to the thrift store for this costume, and bought two large grey sweatshirts, one with a hood, and a plain white t-shirt. At a craft store, I bought a rectangle of styrofoam, poly fill, and a 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of white foam. Any other bits and pieces that wound up on the costume are things I had around the house.

For the head part of the costume I cut out the top part of the hoodless grey sweatshirt. I hot glued it, stuffed it, and added the eyes, then hot glued the head onto the hood part of the other sweatshirt. I drew it out to give a better (I hope!) visual.

I cut out foam teeth and attached them around the opening of the hood. I wasn't going to add the red mouth opening, but my costume wearer got a case of shyness at the last minute, so I cut an oval out of some red fabric I already had, hot glued it around the hood opening, and cut holes in for the eyes.

I cut a fin shape out of the styrofoam. I then covered it with the grey fabric from the cut up sweatshirt, hot glued it together, and then hot glued it onto the back of the costume. I cut out long strips of white t-shirt and glued them along the side to look like the gills, and cut a big oval white piece to be the bottom part of the shark's body.

Who You Gonna Call?

For this Ghostbusters costume, I bought a light tan sweatshirt from the thrift store. Then, using iron-on transfers, I applied the Ghostbusters logo onto the right sleeve and "Venkman" on the upper left chest.

The power pack is a giant cardboard box that I spray painted black. I cut an opening around one side and slid a backpack into it, creating the straps for the pack. I found a bunch of Ghostbusters decals online and printed them onto labels which I cut out and placed on the pack. Any bits and pieces sticking out of the pack are things I had around the house: old toy car tires, plastic containers, etc., that I spray painted black and glued onto the cardboard box.
The utility belt was a toy plastic construction worker belt that I found at the dollar store. I spray painted it, then attached various ghosthunting "tools" onto the belt with clips. The ghost-catcher box is from the dollar store; painted black, with yellow electrical tape on one side and a warning label that I found from a Ghostbuster site online.

The goggles are just regular safety goggles. I found this pair in the garage.

I probably spent less than $15 on the entire costume, and I think it looked pretty good when it was done.

Dorothy

Colonial Girl Costume

Girlie: We're doing an American Revolution project at school. I want to be a colonial woman. Can you make me a costume?

Me: I can try.

Girlie: And I want to show the class how to make a quilt.

Me: Well, I don't know about a quilt...

Later that evening....

Me: I was looking on the internet about quiltmaking during colonial times, and it seems

like only the upper class women were able to have quilts made. How would you like to show the class how to make a hornbook instead?

Girlie: Then I'll be an upper class colonial woman. Can we work on the quilt now?

With my construction paper hornbook shot down, and armed with extremely limited sewing skills, a Hello Kitty sewing machine and a hot glue gun, we pieced together this colonial girl costume. It's certainly not close to being authentic, and I am aware that colonial women weren't running around in short-sleeved dresses, but I have no idea how to make a sleeve, and the girlie is very happy, which is the most important thing

Next up, the "colonial" quilt, which will be a very loose translation. Construction paper has already been vetoed, so I'm looking at using felt squares.