Halloween Costume Pinspiration while we Wait.

Last week I got to spend some time up with my sister, her 2 children, and my sister in law. We had a marvelous week, but one of my shirts may end up dead because of it. Of course I was wearing a new gray shirt I'd recently bought and didn't think I needed an apron, and I spilled olive oil on it. I ran to the bathroom and rinsed it out and applied soap right away, but the stain was there when it dried. So today I have 3 oil removal pins I am testing. My shirt is currently in the washer testing out the first pin (which I had all the supplies for here at home), and if that doesn't work I have 2 other pins I will try (but I have to run to town and get a few supplies). All this to save a shirt. Sheesh. So while the shirt is in the wash and we all wait for the results, I thought I would share my Pin Win from Halloween! 

About 2 weeks before Halloween I happened on instructions for an adult Mr. Tumnus (the faun from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe) costume on Pinterest, and I knew that one year I would turn Darrow into Mr. Tumnus for Halloween. Then as the time approached I realized how easy it would be for all of us to just go as Narnians, so I looked up pictures and ideas (on and off of Pinterest) and went for it.  We bought some supplies for Darrow's costume, but we wanted to make ours out of what we could find at home, and that proved a little tricky, but it worked!

Who do we have there? Let's go through the characters.

Mr. Tumnus

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As soon as I saw this photo with the curly hair I knew this was definitely on the to do list for Darrow some day.  His costume pulled together perfectly!

I got the fabric for the pants at JoAnn's. Once I saw that red fur, I couldn't leave it there! I bought just enough (a rectangle 18" x the width of the fabric) to fit how tall I wanted the pants to be (giving myself a few inches for elastic and hemming). I should have taken step by step photos, but of course I didn't think of it until afterward, but it wasn't too hard.

• First I spread the fabric out on the table (fur side down) and laid a pair of Darrow's sweat pants over the top to trace the outline. I gave an extra inch and a half on the top to make room for the elastic waistband. 
• I got two pant silhouettes cut out, and then trimmed the fur on the edges (cutting it down to the fabric layer) so that it would be easier to sew. I trimmed 3/8" on all the edges except the top; the top got a 2 1/2" trim. 
• With right sides (the furry side) together I sewed the legs of the pants together (leaving the leg holes and the waist hole open). 
• Next in went the elastic. I folded the top of the pants down towards the inside and sewed a casing for the elastic (leaving a small section open to insert the elastic). After measuring Darrow's "waist", I cut a length of elastic the same length and fed it through the casing. I overlapped the elastic ends by 1/2" and sewed them together and then hand stitched the casing closed. 
• Last I hand hemmed the pant legs. I would have machine stitched them, but I didn't want a visible seam on the outside over the top of the fur. 

For the scarf, I bought a skein of red yarn and crocheted up a simple stitch. I chained 11, then did alternating rows of 10 single crochets and 10 double crochets to give it a little bit of texture. To finish it off I added tassels to the end. 

For the horns I bought a light colored plastic headband (his head is big enough that a regular sized one worked great), and some tan felt. For the ears I cut out 4 ear shapes and then glued two pieces together to make them thicker so they would stick out better. I glued those onto the headband with clear gel tacky glue (using clothespins to hold the felt on until the glue dried). After the glue dried, I pinched the ears together at the base and glued them (again, using clothespins) to give them more of a 3D look. For the horns I cut out 4 horn shapes, and then sewed two pieces together, leaving the bottoms open. I turned them right side out, put a little stuffing in (if you don't have stuffing you can use toilet paper, or whatever you can find), and then glued them to the top of the head band. 

I bought black boots for him to wear, but they just didn't look right, so we went with his black/gray socks as his hoofs. 

Since Halloween is cold here, we put him in a long sleeve tan onesie rather than letting him go topless. If I hadn't wanted the onesie afterward I would have drawn some abs on there, but I decided not to. 

Next we had Susan Pevensie:

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I decided to use Susan's battle outfit as the inspiration for basing my costume. Since I was using only what I could find around the house, it wasn't exact, but it worked well I think. 

The skirt came from two old curtains I made for our first apartment (I knew there was a reason to hang on to them! I knew the fabric would come in handy! I cut the top tabs off, sewed seams up the side and added an elastic waist band. TaDa! Not anything I'll wear to church, but it worked great for the costume.

I had a long sleeve shirt in a similar shade of red that I wore underneath.

Next was the armor/chain mail. We're a little short on chain mail around here. I did find some brown mottled fabric in my stash and made a quick and dirty "shrug", and then put my stretchy brown tank top on over the top (tucking the straps down in so it looked "corset-ish" like her armor.

The costume was still lacking though, so I added two belts, and that helped quite a bit.

Even though her battle outfit didn't have a cape, many of her Narnia costumes did, so I took a tablecloth that matched my belt and fastened it on with a safety pin. To hid the safety pin and make the whole thing look better I then clipped on two gold clip-on earrings to look like the clasp/pin on the cape.

Topping it off were Cameron's powder horn to use as Susan's horn, and then Cameron's quiver of arrows. I opted to leave the bow behind since I knew I'd be carrying Darrow for part of the night.

Finishing it off was Susan's signature hairstyle. Not too shabby for last minute and all homespun!

And then finally, a Troll:

According to the Narnia Fanon Wiki, "Trolls were a race of ugly and evil beings that lived in the Trollshaws, located in the vast, virtually ungoverned nation of Northfell. After Narnia's creation, Trolls were most often found in cold, mountainous regions of Northdell, but can be encountered nearly anywhere. Despite been evil, Trolls were very intelligent, civilized, and worshipful." I'm not sure if that comes from the books or if it's just fan fiction, but there you go. Trolls are listed on the Wiki list of Narnian Creatures, so we just went with it because...we already have a troll costume made!

The troll hat from previous years had since been dismantled to use for other costumes, so for this year we used the Dobby ears from the Harry Potter Girls Camp skit instead. My favorite part of this whole costume is the tail, it cracks me up.

The vest is made from burlap sacks and twine. The shirt is an old dress shirt that we shredded the sleeves on and then literally rubbed in the dirt and ashes. For the pants we let out the hems an shredded the bottoms, and then added patches to the legs. The tail is an old coat hanger wrapped in brown strips of fabric, with a lock of wig hair glued to the end. The nose is a costume witch nose we got at Walmart.