Vikings

I almost forgot to share our Viking hats/beards that I made for Halloween. I didn't want to post beforehand because I wanted to keep everything on the DL. I thought Josh might want to wear the Viking hat as something different but he was really reluctant to give up his Link costume (he got his Master sword this summer). It worked out fine since Hector wanted the Viking hat along with Matt which resulted in me knitting another Viking hat to appease both of them. :) That will take care of that pattern for a while.

So since Josh wanted no part of the Viking hat, Hector and I took them out to the Kings hockey game on Oct. 30th. See? VI-KINGS! Anyway, we got lots of laughs/stares/shout outs with screen time on the Jumbotron at Staples center. The best part was posing in the StubHub photobooth and printing out our pictures. I guess we printed out about 3 in a row which resulted in us winning the Royal Fan experience which is a Meet n Greet with a Kings player. Woot!

Josh wearing the Viking hat .

Josh looks pretty meh about the whole idea of a Viking costume....maybe the beard bothered him but LOOK at how COOL this is! :)

Anyway, Halloween is over. Hector & Matt each get their very own Viking hat/beard and my work is done.

The manly beard.

Halloween party

I haven't uploaded all the pics from Halloween but here is a couple from a party we went to a couple of weeks ago...





Josh is really loving his Link costume especially now that he has his Master Sword!! I think we can get  another 1-2 years use out of it if he still wants to dress up. Tyler did for the party but he didn't want to on Halloween. Go figure. I still think he'll dress when we go to conventions.

Halloween

A short post with not a lot of pics. I was busy getting ready Josh for his Halloween parade and he looked great. After that I had to rush to get the Halloween decorations up in time and get candy.

Brick or Treat

I've been working on these costumes and put a lot of time into them so I thought we might as well use them. We have Legoland passes that the kids really enjoy even though they don't have as much interest in the rides anymore.

Legoland has their Halloween celebration called Brick or Treat which runs on Saturday night with fireworks etc but we were busy (see previous post). So on Sunday I packed up the 2 boys with all of our costumes and headed down to Carlsbad.

Both Tyler and I have easy to wear costumes but Joshua's takes some assembly with all the pieces but it's so worth it. Hector stayed home to finish some errands and the shield. Once I got the kids ready we headed toward the entrance and in the parking lot, we could already hear shouts of "Adventure Time!!".

We received lots of compliments and recognition throughout the park especially from the employees and adults saying they were Finn or Link last year. :) The boys had lots of fun walking around and posing for me.

It was a good exercise in testing out the costumes especially Joshua who wore thru some parts of his boot covers so I had to hot glue them better when we got home. I really think they will like going to various conventions in cosplay now. :)

The shield is complete but I need to take a few more photos and get some sealant so it will be ready for the Halloween parade tomorrow and trick or treating too.

So enjoy the photos....

Weekend Fun

Things have calmed down a bit so we can actually do some fun things around home. Hector has been working on Josh's shield and it's coming together nicely.

Here are some pictures of its progress:



The big boys and their tools getting the shield ready then welding the handles on.



Josh with the rough version shield.



The backside of the shield and you can read what this started as. Hector bought it at the swapmeet for $5.



The kids are dressed for their first costume party/Nintendo meetup in Orange County. :)


And another photo of the kids. :) They really enjoyed their costumes this year and they still have another chance to wear them and later for all those cons we are now interested in.



The meetup was in Fullerton near where I grew up about a few blocks away so it was kind of fun.

We got about 30+ tags from gamers so the kids were really happy with that and they're interested in going to more meetups.



Here Josh is participating in the kids costume contest. Tyler was in the adults division and placed in the top 6 so he was happy about that. :)





This guy had a nice robe and crown....and about 1/2 of the adults dressed up. The area we were in in nestled in a  shopping center with a Target across the parking lot. We are in another area with some smaller stores and restaurants like Gamestop and Yogurtland. Lots of seating for hanging out.

Of course, I didn't get a photo of Kat and me dresssed up too but that's okay. We stayed in our costumes later for dinner while the kids changed into regular clothes. We got a few stares at Lomelli's and a big thumbs up too.

Tuesday

It's almost 11am and I've done pretty much all the errands that needed to be done. Bought mailer to return Link costume to China which was about 1/3 the price we paid for the costume that will be refunded. Boo.

Deposited a check from our health insurance for some overpayment for under $6. Seriously? Lots of head shaking going on here...

Doing laundry, scrubbed some stuff (you know what I'm talking about), watered my plants and covered H's motorcycle (rain in the forecast). I feel better about it all so I'm posting my accomplishments.

I saw that GameStop is having a contest for a Wii U. Photos are sent in where the U is in the shape of whatever you can come up with so I need to have Hector and Tyler help me out with Joshua. Hopefully it will be creative enough to get us one. :)

Meanwhile, we are still getting Halloween costumes ready. Tyler's is all done. Joshua is about halfway and Hector is in charge of the shield.

Here is the pic of the prototype.


Josh is holding the cardboard shield and it looks like it'll be the right size.
This is what Hector plans to use for the shield.



Yes, that is a DirecTV satellite dish that H picked up at the swapmeet for $5.



Here is the backside of the dish which has just the right amount of bend. :) Our friend Matt will cut the metal into the proper shape, add the straps and then it'll be ready to paint &/or foam sheets.

Stay tuned....

What Time Is It?

Adventure Time has been on the air for about 3 seasons (?) so of course, I'm late to the party. I remember seeing kids dressed up as Finn but never watched the show. Kat got me started on it and now it's my (and the kids) latest fun thing to do.

I originally planned on having both boys dress as Link for Halloween. T would be grown up Link and J would be young Link. That's where sewing becomes involved and I managed Joshua's costume which is decent but couldn't imagine how to do the bigger size for Tyler. Hector ordered a Link costume to try out which would save me a huge headache but that costume did not fit Tyler comfortably at all so I had to change plans. Hey! Finn from AT would be much easier and Tyler would be much happier running around in shorts and tshirt (like he usually does anyway) so I was off to make the costume.

I really do like it and so does Ty which is the most important thing. I even have enough to make a costume for me. I can be Fionna (the female version of Jake) so that will be a family affair. Josh will still be Link and we need to come up with an idea for Hector....

Anyway, here is a few pics of Tyler dressed as Finn. It's not totally finished...I need to put some velcro on the chin strap and maybe get Tyler some cheap black canvas shoes.

Adventure Time

DIY Finn costume

Started to run out of good light so I forgot to get pics of the backpack but we'll try again. Slamacow!!

Halloween: DIY Link

I've getting a little crazed in the craftyness and decided to make both boys Halloween costumes. Okay, I was really inspired by the awesome costumes (cosplay) we saw at the Anime Expo, and ComicCon. I did some major internet surfing and found some neat sites to help me on my way.

First of all, I relied on this DIY tutorial. My first attempt for the tunic was eh okay. I originally chose a green cotton blend but the material was too thin that frayed at the edges and gave me fits. I went back to the fabric store and found a light suede-like green material that turned out much better. I used a very large oversized Tshirt for my youngest son so the tunic will gather up nicely when belted. The v-neck is a tad large but I'm not going to worry about it. 

I cut out the pieces and loosely sewed the pieces together and then went over it for real with the sewing machine once I had it how I wanted. I edged the armholes, hem and collar edge by hand just because I didn't want to mess it up with the sewing machine since I'm a beginner. I didn't bother with actual sleeves because of my newbie sewing skills and just made the shoulders wider to hang as pseudo sleeves.

I followed the cap instructions as is also edging the cap opening by hand.

Here are the results so far. It's decent and Josh exclaimed that he didn't know how skilled I was with the sewing machine which was super sweet. If he thinks its great, that makes me super happy.

Josh

Okay, we still need the belt, boots & gauntlets. For the photo, I could only find one Ugg boot so excuse that lameness.

My Link needs a shield!!

Moves great for combat.

Stay tuned for more updates and Tyler's costume.

Happy Halloween

I was seriously lagging with Halloween decorations this year along everything else that goes with it but I did manage to do all that I wanted to do, just scaled back a tad.

I made 1/4 of Josh's costume and ordered the rest online. I can't believe how much a simple kids' Yoshi costume cost and it wasn't even well-made. So I found a Yoshi hat which is really cute along with a green sweatsuit (that can be worn later) and bought some green felt which I hot glued together & stuffed with polyfill for the tail. Josh really was happy with it even though it didn't have all the details on it, he was perfectly fine with it.

He got to march in the parade at school and then have a fun Halloween party in class. Tyler didn't get really involved so much but wore a skeleton T shirt  with some skeleton gloves & Jack Skellington mask for trick n treating. I only managed 1 blurry pic of Tyler so you have to make do with Josh's.

Things that begin with "H"

Some of our Halloween decorations this year, most of which I got on sale after last Halloween.

The trick-or-treat pumpkin I did on the massive pumpkin with huge thick walls so remind me not to pick such a big one next year because I will be forever scraping.

That pumpkin took me 2 hours to gut it, then kind of free hand draw the pattern on it from my printed sheet. Some of the templates we have have perforated areas to trace then cut but this one I printed off a disc so I couldn't spend time cutting out all those pieces so I just did the best I could and it came out pretty darn good. :)

I finished another striped hat in dark brown and varied shades of lavender and rust. I think most guys wouldn't protest too much with the lavender, don't you? Hector doesn't care for it but fashionable men should like it, right?



Yay or nay?

Happy Halloween

Kathy and I ready to take the kids trick-or-treating. Kathy is the Queen of Hearts and I'm some fairy anime character. Use your imagination.

Not as many kids showed up this year which I blame the World Series so we used only 2 big bags. Ugh. I'll have to have Hector bring the other candy to his work. :)

Sneak Peek

Today is the boys' Halloween parade and here are their costumes. You may remember that they got their Sonic the Hedgehog and Knuckles hat at the Anime Expo so we got the idea to use them as their costumes. I told them is was a BIG secret because we didn't want anyone stealing their idea.

These were easy costumes to create. Red/blue shirt/shorts and I got some felt to tape on their tummies. Complete!! It was a huge success since I didn't see any other Sonics or Knuckles in the school. I think they looked awesome and when we walked to school, little kids knew exactly who they were.

Later after the parade I went to Tyler's class to take pictures and he looked upset. He said K (another boy) told him someone said Tyler's costume was lame. First, there is no reason to pass along that negative comment if it's going to hurt someone's feelings. It comes from insecurity and meaness. Second, it WAS a great costume in the sea of scary ninjas, Marios & Luigis and super heroes. He was the only boy in his class that didn't wear black.

Of course, as adults we can easily say you can't let it bother you but it does bother an 11 year old boy. I'm sure you remember hurtful comments made to you as a child and for some, the hurt still lingers.

Just be mindful of what you say....