Our Super Duper Super Mario Bros. Halloween! Part 3: Costumes

So I'm guessing that you're all probably wondering how I made these fun costumes, right? Well, I'll tell you, but be warned that I won't have a lot to show since my costume was made years ago, Brandon's was mostly stuff found at the thrift store, and I didn't take any pictures of the making of Kessie's. But, for anyone interested, here's what I did:

Princess Daisy Costume:

So, I know it's not exact, but it was the best I could come up with. And yes, this picture of me looks old because...it is.

1. I bought the shirt from the thrift store. I was looking for something that had short sleeves and was a little "princess"-like. I then took some green and white felt and cut out a big oval and a daisy pattern. Then I used pins to attach it to the shirt. You could sew it as well, or even use hot glue, but if you do, do NOT put it in the dryer after washing.
2. The skirt was sewn using a simple poodle skirt pattern that can be purchased from any sewing store. The fabric is just a yellow cotton that matches the shirt well so that it all looks like one dress.
3. The sash is very simple to sew and was made from orange cotton material. It's about 9 inches in width, and then folded over (so that it's 4.5 inches when being worn). I did this so that the bow in back would be big and spread out. It's also about 3 yards in length. 
4. The gloves came from my mom's stash of kid dress ups. It's a wonder my hands fit them, but I'm sure that it wouldn't be too hard to find gloves at either the thrift store or a costume shop.
5. I got the crown from a dollar store. It was actually quite a bit bigger, so I cut it smaller to the size I wanted, and then stapled it together. Then I took some felt and a green craft jewel to make the daisy in the middle.
6. The earings were also made from the same items as the crown flower, but I attached them with hot glue to some old stud earings I didn't care about anymore.
7. Last, and probably least, I just used a pair of white dressy shoes. I chose flats because I really don't love high heels.

And that's that! Moving on to Luigi:

Yes, this is an old picture too. Peach and Mario's costumes were made the same way too, in case you are wondering.

1.  The overalls were purchased at a thrift store. Unfortunately, guys overalls must be in extremely low supply, because these poor guys were unable to find them in men's sizes. So yes, they are wearing girl overalls, and if you choose to do things this way, you too will most likely have to wear girl overalls. Sorry.
2. The shirt was also bought at a thrift store. Ideally, it should actually be long sleeves, but I didn't even realize this until actually looking at a picture of Luigi later. So if short sleeves is all you can find, it will do.
3. The gloves were purchased at Walmart during the winter season, which was nice and kept his hands warm. We lost the gloves though and later had to use white, leathery gardening gloves instead.
4. The hat was another thrift store item (although I would suggest thoroughly washing it before wearing it). We cut out a white circle, and a green L, and hot glued them onto the hat.
5. The mustache was simply cut out from black felt and stuck on with double sided tape.

And you're done! Woot!

And now, for the best costume, little Toadette:

1.  We'll start with the hat. So, what I did was I took a shower cap, laid it out flat, and measured how big the circle was. From that, I cut out a circle on my fabric (pink cotton). After that, I did a basting stitch around the outside or the circle and pulled on the thread to gather it. Then I took a baby cap and attached the gathered circle to it, making sure to do this inside out so I wouldn't have any raw edges showing. Of course, you'll have to make sure to leave an opening someone so you can turn it back to the right side, so don't forget! Once it's back to the right side out, fill it with some stuffing (not too much though or else it won't fit right on your little one's head). After that, hand stitch the opening closed. Cut out 5, 3.5 inch circles from white felt and hot glue them to the hat. I also added a strap made from leftover material from the hat so the hat could stay on better. I just made two strips with velcro so that it would be comfortable putting on and taking off.
2. I actually made two different kinds of braids. My first idea that I did for the local convention was to use yarn. It was simple, and I just decided what length I wanted the braids and wrapped it around and around, then sectioned it all off into three parts (plus a small top to attach it to the hat) and tied the sections off with more yarn.
3. The second kind of braids I made were much better looking. I made two "tubes" out of the same fabric used for the hat and placed three foam balls inside. Then I tied some thread to section them off. After that, I hot glued some five white felt circles to the end of the braids. Then I simple sewed the braids onto the hat. I sewed them on a little more towards the back so that they wouldn't get in baby girl's way.
4. The shoes were made from a baby booties pattern I got from my sewing class a few years ago. I just used brown knit fabric for those.
5. For the dress and the vest, I used this pattern: 

Pattern B is what I used. After the dress was done, I added some very thin, white rick-rack to the bottom of it.
The vest was made with the same pattern, but I shortened the length. Then I added thick, yellow rick-rack around the outside.

And there ya have it! A whole family of Mario characters!

 The mystery box we made held all the candy we passed out.

 Not the best picture, but here's the whole creation all together!

Princess Daisy Picture: http://www.freewebs.com/princessdaisy178/
Luigi Picture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi
Toadette Picture: http://www.mariowiki.com/toadette

Our Super Duper Super Mario Bros. Halloween! Part 2: Pumpkins and Peach and Mario put-your-face-in-and-take-a-picture things...

And we're back with more on how to make these:

What you'll need:

• So, first of all, you'll need one large, tall box. Our boxes measured about 3-4 feet tall. Yes, it's on the short side for adults, but we figured that children would be interested in these more than adults anyway.
• Picture references 
• Assorted primary color acrylic paints
• Assorted size paint brushes
• A pencil
• A Sharpie
• A box cutter and/or X-ACTO knife
• Your creative artistic skills!

First, gather your pictures. Again, I've provided on this post the pictures we used so that you won't have to search for them, but you can always do other ones if you want.

 The lovely Princess Peach!

 Mario: Hee-YA! 

Basically, it's pretty straightforward. I just drew the picture first with pencil, and then went over it with a Sharpie. Of course, there's no need to draw the face since you will be cutting that out anyhow. After that, paint everything accordingly. You will most likely have to mix up some of your paint to get a skin tone color. I mixed some white, yellow, and red together. I honestly can't say how much of each I did, but what I would suggest is just mixing a little of each and see what you come up with. :)

 After your masterpiece is painted, go over it all with Sharpie again to give it that finished and defined look. 

Once you've got that all done, take a break to admire how awesome you are. You deserve it. ;)

Then, take the box cutter/X-ACTO knife, and cut out the face, and you're done!

 "I am the Princess!"

What a ham... ;)

Now, if you'd like to do the pumpkins, there really isn't much instruction for those, so I'll just list what you'll need and give you the pictures I designed them after.

You'll need:

• Two pumpkins (or more if you want more characters like Toad, a turtle, etc.)
• Picture references 
• Assorted primary color acrylic paints
• Assorted size paint brushes
• A pencil
• A Sharpie
• Your creative and artistic skills! (Funny, this one seems to be so essential...)

My Yoshi turned out just a little different, but basically the same.

King BOO!!!

So there are your pictures, and as before, I would draw your picture first in pencil, then in Sharpie, paint, and then go over again with Sharpie. 

And there you are! :D

Princess Peach Picture:http://s285.beta.photobucket.com/user/HyperGon/media/ItadakiPeach.png.html
Mario Picture: http://www.nintendo.com/sites/mario/
Yoshi Picture: http://www.discover-how-to-draw.com/how-to-draw-yoshi.html
King Boo Picture: http://dreager1.com/2012/03/29/king-boo-vs-meddy/

Our Super Duper Super Mario Bros. Halloween! Part 1: Background

For me, Halloween is a holiday that I always look forward to. Not for the candy, not for the horror movies, not for the gore, but for the costumes. And no, not the whore-rific kind either. Bleh. I'm talking about a real costume that means something, looks awesome, and is home made. Here's what we did:

 Ta-da!

Okay, so I sort of cheated this year and just reused our cosplay from Fandemonium this year...and a previous Halloween before Brandon and I were married, BUT, I did make these and plus, Kessie's costume took a lot of work, and I wanted her to get to wear that costume as much as possible. :)

As if this wasn't enough for you already, we also decided to go full out on our trunk for the Trunk-or-Treat that our church put together. Check. It. Out.

Yup. We're awesome. ;)

Want to know how we did it?

Background:
The background took the most time, but it was well worth it. :)

What You'll Need:

• A big piece of cardboard that fits snugly in your car's trunk.
• Paint in assorted colors. We just used primary color acrylic paint we got from Walmart. 
• Assorted sizes of paint brushes (also from Walmart).
• A Sharpie.
• A pencil.
• Pictures as references 
• Your creative mind.

What we did first was gather a bunch of pictures from the internet of the characters we wanted in our scene. You can have as many or as few as you'd like, and even characters we didn't put in. But just to save you the time of having to look up a lot of pictures for just the right thing, here are all the pictures we used as references:

My husband thinks this character would be awesome to have, and I must say, I really like it in the scene.

 Our scene was based on the old Super Mario games. Believe it or not, this is Bowser. O.o Not as intimidating as he is now, but it works. :)

 A fish. Why not?

 Gotta have a Goomba.

 ...and a flower thing.

 Don't forget the Blooper!

This one was mostly for the bullet.

This was our reference for the overall scene. You can see that our's is a bit different, but it generally helped with the overall look of things.

After gathering the pictures of what you'd like in your scene, get out a piece of scratch paper and roughly draw out what you'd like it to look like. Like this:

Only...better. And not so dead-fishy.

K, so after that, draw out your scene with pencil. After that, outline it all with Sharpie. You will have to do this at the very end too, but I suggest doing it now so that you can clearly see where and what you are painting.

After that, paint everything! This part is pretty meticulous and will take a long time, so you'll probably want someone to help you. We spent at least 4 hours just painting and that was with 2 of us. Ugh.

Once you're done painting, go over the lines again with Sharpie, just to give it a nice finished look.

And voila! There ya are!

Tune in to the next post for instructions on the pumpkins and Peach and Mario put-your-face-in-and-take-a-picture things.

Picture References: 
Lakitu Picture: http://www.mariowiki.com/User:Super_Spike
Bowser Picture: http://www.corksandcaftans.com/2010/01/12/the-birthday-boss/
Fish: http://gamer7heaven.wordpress.com/art-gallery/8-bit-pixel-art/8-bit-mario-art/
Goomba: http://gamer7heaven.wordpress.com/art-gallery/8-bit-pixel-art/8-bit-mario-art/
Piranha Plant: http://www.etsy.com/listing/85570053/super-mario-bros-piranha-plant-favor-box   
Fish and Blooper: http://www.etsy.com/listing/100092913/mario-bros-blooper-cheep-cheep-duo
Assorted Picture:http://www.flickr.com/photos/riotpatch/5379535086/
Castle Picture: http://gamefans.com/2012/07/24/super-mario-games-go-downloadable-on-the-3ds/mario-underground-end/ 

  

Fruits Basket

 (Click here to watch a trailer)

Cute, hilarious, and fun all around. This anime is about a girl named Tohru Honda who discovers the secret that surrounds the family of her classmate Yuki Soma. Some members of his family, including him, transform into the 12 animals of the Chinese Zodiac when hugged by someone of the opposite gender, or when under stress. The anime deals much with how ones influence can have a great impact on another.

• Age Appropriateness: Teens +
• Content Rating: Fruits Basket is almost entirely harmless really. Kyo does swear quite often though, and there is one cross-dresser (if you have anything against that). Also, when those who are cursed transform back from being their respective animals, they are naked, but nothing is ever shown since they generate a big poof cloud when they transform, but other than those things, it's a very mild anime.
• Dub vs. Sub: I watched this anime with the English dub, and I liked it that way. I thought the voices matched up very well, so that's what I would recommend.
• Overall Rating: I would give Fruits Basket a 4/5. It's a wonderful anime and I love it, but aside from a few parts of the show, it was mostly fun to watch once. Although the end doesn't give much closure, and near the end gets a little boring with the same old stuff going on, I would say that Fruits Basket was definitely a good anime to watch all around. 

Fruits Basket picture from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Fruits_Basket_episodes

Pretear

(Click here to watch the opening)

This anime is only 13 episodes long, and the creators could have added in some more elements to make it better, but somehow, I still really liked it! I mean, what's not to like about a story with elements from Snow White, about a girl destined to save the world by merging with 7 different knights (and falling in love with the Knight of the Wind) in order to protect and save the world from the Princess of Disaster? The opening song is also enjoyable, for sure!

• Age Appropriateness: Teens +
• Content Rating: It's not quite for little kids really, simply for the fact that the transformations, although not explicit, are a bit revealing. There is also some mild language thrown around here and there.
• Dub vs. Sub: I would suggest the dub, since it's done well. Plus I do enjoy Luci Christian and Chris Patton who voiced Duck and Fakir from Princess Tutu. 
• Overall rating: I give this a 4/5. I really like this one, and it's kind of nice that it's only 13 episodes long, and they do a good job of making things flow in such a short amount of episodes. The characters are great as well and I love the opening song. 

 Pretear Picture from: http://www.zerochan.net/Hayate,Pretear