Halloween Preview 2012

I'll admit it...I began thinking about Halloween costumes months ago. Seeing as this is probably the only year the boys are going to let me get away with coordinating their costumes, I knew I was going to take advantage. I came up with a few options: a dog and his bone, a monkey and his banana, a football player and his football. But when Colton picked football player AND then I found a cute referee costume for Chipper at Target, I knew we just had to go with the football player and ball option.
So, then I started looking for football player and football costumes. And just like last year, I couldn't find any options that met both my aesthetic and/or my budget. Although, honestly, this time around, it was much more about the look...I wanted something that was much more custom and didn't want to just go with the generic Steelers jersey (even though Colton owns 2 in his size!). And because making their costumes ended up being so easy and so budget-friendly, I figured I'd share both processes with you in case you're in need of a last-minute costume idea!
 Let's start with the football player. Here's the finished product (well minus accessories/face paint, etc):

How cute is that tush? Anyways, to make it, I used the following:
 *black t-shirt (although I amazingly couldn't find one in Colton's size, so I had to dye a white one)
 *girls black leggings in Colton's size
 *iron-on hem tape
 *ribbon for embellishment
 *felt for numbers, Steelers emblem, and extra stack for shoulder pads
 *iron-on letters
 *my oh-so-trusty glue gun!

Let's start with making the pants. I began by cutting off the leggings at an appropriate knee-length for Colton. To hem them, I just used the iron-on hem tape. Then, I used my glue gun to affix the yellow stripe on the side to resemble a Steelers uniform (obviously you'd want to switch that up, at least color-wise, depending on team choice). That was it...pants were done in about 5 minutes!For the shirt, I began by ironing the letters on the back. I used one of Colton's actual jerseys to figure out that the numbers on it were about 2x5, so I drew out some boxes that big on white felt, and then drew the numbers free-hand within those boxes. To affix the numbers to the shirt, I used my glue gun. Next up was the ribbon embellishment around the sleeves. Again, I was trying to resemble a Steelers shirt, so I used some white and yellow ribbon and pretty much just copied the pattern on an actual jersey. To get it to stick, I used...my glue gun (did you guess that?!?). And same with the emblem...glue gun success! The final touch, then, were the shoulder pads on the inside. I took a stack a felt (I chose felt because I didn't want it to be too scratchy for Colton) and glued it together about 8 deep and then glued that stack to the inside of the shirt. In person, it's hilarious (at least to me) how his little shoulders are bulked up!

As for Levi's costume, here's a preview shot:

To make it, I used the following:
 *onesie and leggings in his size (both white originally)
 *brown dye (1 pack for both)
 *white felt
* that oh-so-trusty glue gun again!

If it's possible, making Levi's costume was even easier than making Colton's! I couldn't find brown onesie and/or leggings, so I just bought them in white and then followed the directions on the box to dye them. Easy enough, right? Once they were nice and dry, I cut out the lines and used the glue gun to affix them to his shirt. I mean, seriously, I feel lame even explaining it since it was so easy!

I tried to get a picture of the two of them together, but Colton seemed to be taking the whole "football player trying to get the ball" thing to heart, and this was the best I could get.

Oh well, at least it was only our test run, huh?!?

How about you all?  Have you been busy with costumes too...for you or the kiddos?  What's everyone going to be?