Halloween 2012: Second Star Over, and Straight on ‘Til Morning

I know I’m not posting much these days. Part of it’s just the business of life; part of it’s my weekly or more posting over at SlumberPartyMovies.com. Part of it’s also that I used to love writing about the travails of small-space living, because it made me feel better about living in a small space; now that I’m living in a house I love, with more closet space than my old apartment had, you know, space, what am I going to say? “Here’s another post on how we made the house we love even more fabulous!” There’s no drama there. No conflict. Contentment is boring.

But it is Halloween again, and that means it’s time for costuming! Last year I made Eliza a fabulous green skirt as Puck, and she refused to wear it; a few months ago, we rented the first Tinkerbell movie, and she’s over the whole itchy-skirt thing. For those of you who aren’t aware of the Fairy Industrial Complex, there’s a whole series of DVDs about Tinkerbell’s creation myth, and her backstory (before she became a jealous, petulant slave of Peter Pan’s), and after much resisting, I finally gave in and was charmed by the movies, much against my will. Mostly I love Tinkerbell because she’s part of the Tinker guild of fairies. They build and fix things so the more glamorous fairies–the animal, flower, wind, and water fairies–can make the world beautiful. As I do software development for the corporate office of a global architecture firm, I felt an immediate kinship with the Tinker fairies of the world. They’re essentially unsung Fairy geeks.

So Eliza’s a Tinker fairy this year, with the costume I made last year–surprisingly, it still fits!–and I made a stone hammer, which is like a wand for tinker fairies. It’s constructed of a painted styrofoam egg, a dowel, and kitchen twine, so, you know, way complicated. Her crown–not pictured here–is plastic leaf vine from Michael’s. I almost made her wings, and then decided that was addlepated. Done and done.

Gillian was more of a puzzle. What’s a pint-sized accompaniment to a fairy, that’s not also a fairy? A friend of mine, whose 10-year-old is a big fairy fan, suggested pixie dust. As Gillian, with her diminutive height, tiny face and impish grin,  is pretty much the picture of a pixie, I thought that fit perfectly. So how does one make a toddler into a burlap sack?

With a fitted crib sheet and turtleneck, dyed brown in the sink, of course. Cut out leg holes and holes for the drawstring, stuff her full of gold mesh, and fashion a little felt Peter Pan hat (trimmed in white ricrac, of course), and presto: the cutest little bag of pixie dust this side of Neverland.

SHAZAM!

A paci-less pixie.