My mother didn’t care for halloween, to put it mildly, and really I don’t blame her: whining for expensive costumes that last for one night, demanding different ones at the last minute, coming home with a pillowcase full of candy and then belly aches and sugar melt downs for days.  I can feel the hate for halloween in my genes, but I try to fight it. As long as I treat halloween costumes as quick and dirty projects then I’m not mad when they are rejected or ripped or ugly or whatever.  A lot of people love halloween though and thank goodness because they make awesome costumes for us to ogle.

amazing and creative handmade halloween costumes

1. Baby Woodpecker, 2. Devil(ed) Egg, 3. Jedi Robe, 4. lace crown, 5. Star wars birthday courtesy of oliver and s and ottobre, 6. angry/suprised owl, 7. Infant Elvis Costume, 8. week 9.2, 9. in lieu

This is just a small selection of the fantastic tutorials out there for kids’ halloween costumes. The creativity and the construction of these costumes blows me away. If you know of any good tutorials (or have made some yourself) please leave a comment linking to it.  And get ready because the challenge starts on Monday!

hilarious halloween costume tutorials

1. strong man 2. freezer paper skeleton costume 3. sock monkey 4. pukka costume 5. care bear costume 6. frankenstein 7. happy mutant three armed baby 8. last minute kids owl costume 9. daisy costume

click here to see all the amazing owl artists.

We’re on Thanksgiving vacation in these parts, so I’m going to keep going with theme and post about some plush trends for the next couple of days. And there is no trend bigger than the stuffed owl. Why is everyone who tries their hand at toy making compelled to make an owl? Hell, I even made a couple myself. What is it about an owl that makes people want to immortalize it with fabric and polyfil? It’s cool looking, but so are plenty of other animals and it’s not particularly soft and cuddly unlike others. Why do we find ourselves cutting out big googly eyes and little top hats to go on this beautiful bird? Who knows, but somehow every owl ends up looking completely different from the rest. Abby Glassenberg has recently added to this enormous owl family. Her owl is majestic and beautiful, just like the real bird, and somehow different from every other stuffed owl that came before it.

Just onne more bird. Happy Thanksgiving!

gobble, gobble.

owls for luka, originally uploaded by elsiemarley.

If you have a blog that is even marginally related to crafts you must make a stuffed owl. This is the number one rule of craft blogs. You cannot break it. I tried. And here I am making frikken owls. And I’ve only had this blog for a week.These were made from Moonstitches tutorial, which I would link to if I knew how (here it is), and really they were a pleasure to make. They are for a new baby boy so I make them with rugged, little boy fabric: cordoroy, denim, wool, and canvas. It was a little bit of a pain when it came time to sew their beaks, as all the fabric was quite thick, but I like how they turned out (if I do say so myself). This was my first attempt at embroidery and it’s pretty wonky, but I had a damn good time doing it.