10.25.2012

an incredible costume


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our kids' preschool has a fall party a few days before halloween. this is good because it gives judah the chance to dress up as whatever solo character he would most like to be before we all get dressed up in our group costume closer to the real date. that way if he is really wanting to be someone/something that doesnt fit into a group idea, he still gets the chance to rock it before toeing the line in our family theme.

last year, he wanted to be buzz lightyear so i made him some wings to go along with the store bought costume that someone had given him (and which was waaaaay too small).

apparently the new tradition is that his solo costume is his current favorite Pixar character, hand made by mommy the night before, because this year he wanted to be Dash from "the incredibles."


we LOVE all of the pixar movies and "the incredibles" is one of my favorites, so i was more than happy to let my little blondie be the speedster son of mr. incredible and elastigirl.

layla hasnt mastered english yet and as such cannot exert her will in quite as specific of a manner, so she just got put into a generic monster costume from our dress up trunk that i had found on mega clearance last year.

oh but yesterday evening was probably the worst ever for me as a parent. both kids, but judah in particular, were acting so defiantly and refusing to obey or have good attitudes. jesse and i were both near tears and at a loss. i cancelled my trip to the store to get a few pieces of the costume because i was NOT feeling like rewarding him in any way for the torture he was putting us through.

well, after some come to jesus moments (mostly by me) and a second dinner for judah at 8 pm, he was back to his normal sweet self. he went to bed freaking adorably and at about 9:30 i decided that i did want to bless him by giving him the costume of his dreams. i also decided to market it to him as a reward for changing his heart and attitude.

after a few lickety-split little sewing additions, $5.50 at walmart, and a little thinking outside the box, jesse and i had created the PERFECT dash costume for judah to wake up to this morning:

yall,  he FREAKED when he saw it. (DIY at the bottom of the post)

i was worried he might balk at the tights, but i called them dash's super speed pants and he went for it. 

the only challenge we had we getting him to go along with was gelling his hair back. he is mega weird about his hair being wet or styled in any unusual way (can you blame him? his natural mane is pretty fabulous).

but after a little blow drying the gel into submission, we had a full blown super on our hands:

who is that masked man?


it's DASH, coming to save the day!

monsters flee from him!

villians quail at the sight of him!

mutant creatures become utterly adorable running from him!

a chilly cold morning can't stop our hero!

"i have come to wage war on peace and harmony!!!"

"you'll have to get through me first, monster!"


the dreaded monster stomp threatens to topple our hero!

they clash in hand to hand combat!


dash exerts his super-strength (of character)  and warns the goblin to give up!


the monster persists, so dash is forced to bounce her into submission!

the monster didnt account for a slippery surface AND the altered center of gravity in her fur! she is vanquished! (but still amazing)

our hero has done it again and heads off into the sunset rise, victorious.

and after a heart-stopping scare when we pulled into preschool and saw a bunch of kids unloading dressed NORMALLY, we were relieved to find that many inside had in fact dressed up. including judah's BFF, logan rocking jake from the neverland pirates. (and pictured together last year in costume in their 2 year old class).





my favorite thing about this kind of DIY costume is that i didnt buy anything that cant be reused and i didnt transform anything that cant be used in a normal day-to-day way (when we arent being super).


or you could just spend $30 on this polyester version from amazon and it can get worn maybe 3 times and used for nothing else. (was the snarky? i am loyal to the DIY process).


so here's the low down on how easy all the elements of this costumer were to throw together.


-hair gel

-black super hero mask (we already had a blue one in our dress up box and i just pinned it to some black fabric and sewed all along the borders and then trimmed the excess..super easy). you could also buy one for cheap or make from scratch easily (or even just use face paint/makeup)

-red long sleeve (tight-fitting) t-shirt: i bought mine from walmart for $3 in the garanimals section (and i bought a size down so it would fit more snug).

-"incredibles" logo printed out on one of my shipping label sticker sheets (so i can reuse the shirt without the logo). 

-orange belt: just a strip of fabric with velcro on the ends. we placed this over the waistband of the black underpants (we ended up securing it with a safety pin too since his maneuvers sometimes busted through the vercro).

-a pair of layla's black bloomers for the super-underpants

-store bought pair of opaque red tights (will be reworn by layla) for $1.88 at walmart

-super boots: we took judah's rain boots (which are spiderman patterned) and slipped a pair of jesse's black socks over the entire boot, tucking the excess around the top inside rim of the shoe to give make them look all black but without making the change permanent.

-gloves: i could have bought a costume pair for $3 but instead chose to take a pair of old black mittens and combine them with the cut off top of another pair of jesse's old black socks to get the long super gloves. i just cut the foot of the sock off, leaving the tube of black material. i then turned it inside out and sewed down the long seam; taking it in about an inch to make the circumference small enough to fit snuggly on my little man's tiny forearms, and then sewed the raw edge of the tube to the cuff of each mitten.

-*i didnt catch it until now, but it looks like the real dash actually has some black trim around the collar. if i lived in cold climes i would have done this with a black turtleneck underneath (or, you know, a dickey!), but for GA, i probably would have just sewn another strip of black fabric around the edge of the collar (with a long basting stitch so i could easily remove it)

and just like that we have a tiny superhero!

next week: we tackle or family ensemble. i'll give you a hint, we are from another pixar movie.

stay incredible, yall.


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4 comments:

  1. great job! the gel in the hair makes it so authentic

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  2. Tell me its UP and you are being the old man? Elliot was the chubby boy scout last year. so awesome.
    Monsters Inc? Layla is the little girl who escapes?
    Toy Story? Layla is Buzz-since the costume is too small for judah?
    Wall-E? that would be tricky
    Finding Nemo?

    Okay I'll stop. SO excited to see them!

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  3. The hair is EVERYTHING! Love it!!!

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  4. YOU ROCK!!! What an amazing costume...the pictures are, well...incredible! The gel hair is the best...can't believe you talked him into that one!

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