Crafty Fun

A lot of people assume since I'm married to an artist, I am an artist as well. Not true. I'm pretty sure I have at most only one crafty bone in my body, and unfortunately it's probably my big toe. I have developed an eye for art appreciation since being married to Karl, but still my drawing skills are soon to be eclipsed by June (we're talking months or weeks until this occurs). However, I do yearn to create  things with my hands.  I've tried my hand at crocheting - both yarn and plastic bags. I have sewn curtains for the bathroom and the nursery. I've replaced elastic and velcro in our cloth diapers. I even sewed a bunch of cloth wipes for a friend who is cloth diapering. (notice all the sewing projects only have straight lines)

Therefore, I have no idea why I decided that this year the kids are going to be elephants for Halloween and we're going to make both of their outfits. Really. Elephants.  Couldn't we have started with something simpler like dogs or cats or anything else that would simply require putting stripes or dots on a sweatsuit. But no, elephants it is. I managed to find a "learn to sew" pattern of a monkey at JoAnn's for $.99. I changed the ears and tail and added a trunk and tusks and voila. An elephant for Ruben. Karl had volunteered to paper mache an elephant head with June so that sounded good to me. We spent most of the day Saturday working on these costumes. It was a fantastic day for everyone.  June woke up Saturday DYING to make her elephant costume. Paper mache takes a while to dry and then paint so for about three days we kept hearing about how much she wanted to work with Daddy on her elephant. Here's a short pictorial glance at our process.

Ruben's Elephant Costume

$1 hard hat purchased at the Dollar Store down the street with foam-core board and painter's tape - This is what Karl managed to do before and during nap on Saturday

Paper Mache was completed on Saturday as well but it took nearly a day and a half to dry because we left it on the porch where it was too cold to dry. Monday was the day to paint!

Now we just need to convince June it will be okay to wear the hat for more than 30 seconds at a time. And that's why we started 2 weeks in advance