Handmade Halloween, no sewing required!

The last two years, I've made Luke's Halloween costumes, and I really haven't sewn a thing. By strategically picking what he was going to be and then combing thrift and resale shops, I was able to make cute, unique costumes that didn't require much stitching at all.

Wanna see? First up, last year's costume.

Last year, Luke went as a Mounty. I assume most people know what a Mounty is, but perhaps it is more known to us Michiganders and others who border Canada.

Here's a real Mounty -- also known as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

To make this costume work, the biggest thing I needed was the red coat. I totally lucked out. I found the red coat at a Mom2Mom sale for $8. I really thought it was perfect. I had to look at a few sales before finding it. So worth it!

After that, the most important piece was the right hat. I wound up finding this hat at a thrift store. It was a ladies hat and had a band of leapord print fabric around it. I snipped that off and used a black hair thingy to make it look more Mounty-ish. Then I added a fabric strip to the inside to make it fit on Luke's small head better, because it's really a full-sized adult hat. I simple stapled the strip, which was smaller than the actual hat depth, to this flappy piece of lining inside. Then it would then sit perched on his head and not fall into his eyes.

It's tough to see, but the Mounty pant is a black pant with a yellow stripe running down the side. Which, I just happened to have a pair like that! So that was easy.

The boot gave me trouble. I looked everywhere for a boy's brown boot. Nothing. Seriously, nothing. Not at the Mom2Mom sales, the thrift stores, Target, the Halloween stores, nothing, anywhere. Apparently brown boots are a girl thing. So I wound up buying a used girls' pair for $4 and covered the flowers on the side with an old sock. I just cut the toes off the sock.

A leather belt went around his waist and then I cut a brown canvas strap off an old bag to make the strap that goes across his chest.

I added some yellow fabric circles to the top of the coat, trying to mimic some details from the real Mounty coat.

Ug, my camera was messed up last year and all my photos are blurry!

I did sew him that small Canadian flag to carry around, just to reinforce the idea. I think it helped. I used a chopstick for the handle. And a friend gave me that toy horse! What's a Mounty without his royal stead?

Cute, right?

This has gotten long, so I'll save the other costume for a new post. It's a really, really simple costume that got TONS of compliments. And it's great for last minute.

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