A Green Halloween

I wrote earlier about how ecstatic I was to be able to buy a used costume for Drake as part of my Buy Nothing (New) Month for October. That left me with two costumes to make: a Nature Fairy (Gracie) and a black widow spider (me).

Since I could only purchase used items, I went to a thrift store and bought a green dress, a piece of brown felt, a small wreath of twigs, a black shirt, and several pairs of black pantyhose. I used the felt to make a loose poncho and sewed several leaves onto it. I also sewed leaves onto the fairy wings, which she already had. I used the wreath to make a crown and attached pine cones and sycamore gumballs. Unfortunately, the crown was deemed too "poky" and wasn't worn for trick-or-treating. I have to say: out of all the costume choices, Nature Fairy was probably one of the most conducive to a Buy Nothing (New) month.

Robin and the Nature Fairy ready for a night of
trick-or-treating. My little cherubs...

On the day of Halloween, our friends came over with their daughter and we all worked on the remaining Halloween costumes, while a nice big pot of chili simmered on the stove all day. The kids' costumes were done; we just needed to work on the adults' costumes. For my spider costume, I cut the waist part off the pantyhose and stuffed them, to make legs (I already had the stuffing). The legs were then tied together with black yarn, which I already had. I sewed the top of the waist together to make a little beanie hat and glued squiggly eyes onto it. And then I sewed a red piece of foam onto the shirt for the identifying mark of a black widow. (Disclaimer: My friend provided the squiggly eyes and red foam. So even though I didn't buy it, it was still "bought," and I therefore count it against my "Buy Nothing (New) Month.")

Two creepy-crawly *poisonous* spiders. Bleh.
I did like all my extra arms though!

Meanwhile, the guys were working on their
costumes: Abe Drinkin' and John Wilkes
Vermouth. We crack ourselves up...

Even our dachshund got into the spirit with a
costume that we had from previous years. The
funniest part, aside from the devil eyes (the one
time I actually appreciate the red eyes!), was that
he was *rooted* to the spot after we put this
costume on him! It was as if we'd draped a lead
curtain over him!