These were the words uttered to me when I asked my son what he wanted to be for Halloween.
Admittedly, Halloween was not one of my favorite seasons growing up. I have fond memories of being five, dressing up like Strawberry Shortcake and going trick-or-treating. But that's about it. I always had trouble coming up with creative costumes. I also don't think my Mom was especially fond of shelling out money for something I was only going to wear once. C'mon -we're a Chinese family - think practical! You're also talking about a household that gave out the 'nasty' candy because they were the only ones left on the shelves at the local Pathmark. Needless to say, we were not a Halloween kind of family, growing up.
Now that I have two kids and I have my own home, I am gaga about Halloween - but not the scary kind...the cute, happy, pumpkin patch kind of Halloween. You could say that I'm a big fan of all the fourth quarter holidays (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas). But it wasn't until I had kids that I really got into Halloween. Example - I had a business trip in August, 2011, to Texas. After work, I stopped at a local HomeGoods just to kill some time. All the Halloween decorations were out and I saw these AMAZING ghosts. They were glittery and big and just fabulous! The moment I saw them, I started thinking of ways to smuggle them onto the plane for the ride back to DC. Unfortunately, practicality and sane logic won out...there was no way I could pull it off. I had no time to get to a FedEx store before leaving and I would not be getting them on a plane without purchasing another ticket. The moment I got back to DC, I started trolling my local HomeGoods stores for the same glittery ghosts. It wasn't until a trip to the fourth store did I actually find them (Thank you, Fair Lakes HomeGoods!). They have become one of my favorite Halloween decorations to date.
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| Great additions to our family! |
Knowing that my one child is slightly obsessed with Super Heroes, I figured he would make his way through the Marvel Universe of costumes, after being Spider Man last year. And when I asked Matty, I was right - he wanted to be Iron Man. When I got to my second child and asked Liam what he wanted to be for Halloween, he looked at me with a wry smile and said, "I want to be a hot air balloon." I looked back at him to see if he might be joking but he wasn't. (SIDE BAR: I start asking the boys about their costume ideas in August because after Liam told me he wanted to be an ice cream cone last year (and yes, I did make the costume for him), I figured, I needed to give myself a cushion.)
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| Inspiration |
A hot air balloon...a HOT AIR BALLOON! I needed about a week to let it sink in - and then every week thereafter, I kept asking Liam what he wanted to be for Halloween just to see if he would waver in his answer. He didn't. So onto the Internet I went to look for ideas and there are some REAL doozies out there - like WAY out of my crafting league! I finally found this picture with a tutorial and went with it. From the looks of it and the instructions, it didn't look very complicated.
Here were my materials:
- 36" latex balloon
- 4 spools of Grosgrain ribbon - thin (color, your choice) from Michael's
- 1 spool of thicker ribbon (no wires) to use as shoulder straps/harnesses
- Basket from Michael's (look for one where the bottom wouldn't be difficult to remove
- 2 brown paper lunch bags (I just saved the ones I got from Whole Foods)
- Twine
- 1 Helium Tank (from party store)
- I Mini plaque/chalk board and chalk or paint
- Staple Gun
- Tape
- Patience
- Aviator type hat - I actually ordered a crochet one from Etsy
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| Liam, the Boy Genius! |
Basically, I found a great basket from Michael's. I knocked out the bottom of the basket, removed any jutting nails and stapled a ribbon border along the bottom to serve as extra 'padding' against Liam's legs.
I had Liam stand with the basket around him so I could measure out how much ribbon I would need for his shoulder straps. After cutting out the appropriate amount of ribbon, I sewed in the straps and included a safety pin in the back so when he had the final costume on, I could safety pin the two ribbons in the back (an extra precaution so it wouldn't slip from his shoulders).
The hardest part was measuring out the balloon and thinner, grosgrain ribbons. When I asked the party store lady how many 36" balloons the helium tank could blow up (so I could gauge how many mistakes I could make), her answer was '1 1/2 MAYBE.' Oh boy. That meant no mistakes. So after doing some trial and error measurements with a mouth blown balloon (that sounds dirty), I knew nothing would work until I had a real helium balloon, which couldn't happen until Halloween.
Leading up to Halloween, I painted the wooden plaque and made it into a sign that read: 'Hot Air Balloon Rides - 5 cents.' I also got the 'sandbags' ready with the brown paper lunch bags and twine- just stuffed them with some scrap paper to make them look puffed up.
Also, in the meantime, I had Liam step into his basket again, with the shoulder straps this time, and I measured out the grosgrain ribbon, from the corners of the basket, to where the bottom of the balloon would be. I woke up extra early on Halloween morning to blow up one of the 36" latex balloons with helium, and started taping grosgrain ribbons around it to really give it that 'hot air balloon' feel. I secured the helium balloon with the grosgrain ribbons from the corners of his basket and voila - we had a hot air balloon.
The look on Liam's face was priceless - he loved it!
We got lots of compliments on the costume, both at school and during trick-or-treating. This was definitely a labor of love and I think Liam is going to keep this Momma on her toes for many more Halloweens to come!
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| Bring it on, Liam! |
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