Recent Hallowe'ens Past

From what I understand, Dave's family didn't really do Hallowe'en growing up. They stayed in and watched movies as a family, didn't even give out candy. Things are different now, and Dave loves Hallowe'en. Every year we put many hours and probably too much money, into our costumes - primarily his. He decided what he wants to be, usually some sort of anime character who uses a massive sword, and we get to work accomplishing his goals. For the most part, I put together the clothing and every year it is getting closer and closer to a 'from scratch' costume. I spend hours cutting, sewing and stitching together random pieces of fabric and/or clothing found at Value Village. Dave spends this time assisting me and making whatever weapon is needed for the costume that year.

The first costume I remember making with Dave was Boba Fett in 2006. It was primarily made of cardboard and paint. He made the blaster out of cardboard, a couple cheap toy guns and heaps of hot glue. I fashioned the helmet out of paper mache and bits of foam and cardboard. I then spent hours painting the stupid thing. I believe there was an all nighter right before Hallowe'en that was necessary to get the costume completed. The photo below is from this years Halloween - Dave wore his Boba Fett helmet and the gun with his suit and went as a professional (killer) (it was his back up costume for the first party).Dave spent the hours in which I painted his costume fashioning home-made wings out of wire for me and I threw some fabric on them at the last minute and went as a fairy. Unfortunately, the wings were eye-gougers and were deemed unsafe for party use.2007 was the first year of the anime costumes. He was as Cloud from Final Fantasy VII. This costume was primarily made of things found at Value Village and a hockey chest guard. As a side note, never try to sew through chest guards, it is very difficult and leads to lots of blisters on your fingers, even when you drill holes through it first.My costume as pretty much pre-made in a few seconds in Value Village. I found a dress that sort of fit and then got some gloves and a staff and voila - a warlock. Chris then decided to go as my succubus minion and we were giant losers for going as WoW characters.Last year Dave (2008) went as Ichigo from Bleach. Once again this consisted a fancy sword for Dave to make and lots of sewing for me. We found an old coat at Value Village and I tailored it to fit Dave and added many new aspects of it. The coat should have had tears on the bottom, but it was so pretty and it took so long to make that I couldn't bear to rip it all up. I also learned how not to make pants from scratch as the process to forever. It did result in the perfect looking pair of pants for the outfit, but I am certain there was a faster way to do it.
Since the costume was incredibly intensive, and we didn't start making it even remotely early enough, my costume was once again thrown together at the last minute and turned out to be rather boring. I was a photographer. We found a silly crocodile Dundee type hat from a Hallowe'en store and sewed the buttons from Dave's coat onto it since they looked a little like teeth. I wore beige pants, a brown shirt and a beige vest and my beige pashmina as it was cold and carried my camera around all night. In reality, I looked like me, especially since I stopped wearing the hat after an hour or so at the party because I don't like hats.
This year I insisted that we start early with the costumes, or at least try to. Dave decided what he wanted to be and we got to work on it almost right away. We also decided that the best way to make the costumes this year was to start completely from scratch and use the sewing machine we had bought the year before and patterns. I have since learned that though patterns make life simpler, they also make it much more chaotic. Come Hallowe'en all the costume patterns have been picked up from the FabricLands in Ottawa and you are left ordering them online. But since I live in Canada I have to order them over the phone, which I do not like doing. They take up to two weeks to come so despite the fact that we knew what we wanted to be and ordered the patterns early, we were still left making the costumes at the last minute because of shipping time.
That being said, they didn't really take that long to arrive and we were able to start working on them much earlier than any previous year. Dave decided to go as Kisame from Naruto (our friend Justin is going as Itachi from the same show). We spent a great deal of time modifying the pattern but I am pretty happy with how it turned out. Of course, Dave spent hours making the new giant sword, though this time the thing is significantly lighter (previous swords have weighed a ton and would never be able to be used as no typical person could swing that more than once of twice in a fight). Like I said, the robe and sword were made from scratch. The rest of the costume, pants, sock, etc were found at various stores and modified as required.My costume was a little different this year. It changed at least three times as I was making Dave's. I determined that as the complexity of Dave's costume increases, so does the simplicity and thrown-together-ness of mine. In the end, I decided to go as a wood elf. The robe was made using the same pattern as Dave's with a few less modifications. We added some gold details to it to make it extra special and then Dave let me borrow his bow for the evening. We bought elf ears and I wore neutral clothes that I already owned beneath the robe. Unfortunately there are no photos of me wearing my costume as when we did the retake of the costumes, there wasn't enough time to get my ears back and as they took quite a while (and hurt quite badly coming off).