honest abe

Today my daughter did a biography report on Abraham Lincoln. She got a huge laugh out of the class when she walked up in the hat and beard. They all loved the really tall hat! The top hat project was inspired by Sue Astroth's book, Super-Simple Creative Costumes. I used fast2fuse heavyweight and black felt. I wanted to make sure that it fit Alivia's head perfectly so that it wouldn't fall off during her speech. I measured her head and found a paper plate that had just about the right circumference so I just trimmed a little off and it was perfect. The beard is stuffed fleece and tied around her head with embroidery thread. Alivia asked if she could be Abraham Lincoln for Halloween. 
Score . . . one costume down 2 to go.

super hero party

These are the invites for my sons 3rd b-day party. They were the easiest I’ve made yet, and I think they are my favorites. I just laid out the invitation cover, saved it as a HiRes JPG photo size 4 x 6 and had them printed at Walgreens as photos for $0.19 a print. I then glued a black and white print of the invitation details on the back. How simple and inexpensive is that?

Now for the party:

Super Hudson showing off his super muscles in his bat cave

Now for the fun part, the party.

Every super hero needs a cape and mask to hide their identity so I made one for each super hero.

The masks are a simple oval shape with slits for the eyes. I used a black satiny fabric for the front, fast2fuse for the middle and a gold velvety fabric for the backing. I used  stretchy black elastic for the strap. I just sewed around the outside of the mask and eyes to hold it together and keep the strap on. I don’t think they look great but the kids thought the masks were cool. It just shows me that my work doesn’t have to be perfect for the kids to have a good time.

The capes look cool. I sort of traced a cape that my son already had  for the basic shape. I folded the sides in and sewed all around the outside edge of the cape to make a hem. I used velcro on the top to hold the cape on. You could put stars or the initial of each child on the back.

The bat cave. I made this out in our back yard. We have a gazebo in the center of our yard, so I covered the entire thing with outdoor black fabric netting and a big tarp. My husband spray painted a huge bat on the front of the tarp. I hung a bat in the middle inside the bat cave and put the capes and masks in there. The cave was really low tech but with a little imagination, it was real! Hudson was bringing all the guests into his bat cave to “fly” with him. He was so cute.

The party. We started with the super hero training camp which was an obstacle course. Once the heroes completed their training the kids drove Hudson’s bat mobile to the bat cave to get their super hero gear (capes and masks) and their crime fighting tools. batman balls and spider man silly string “webs”.  The kids went through the bat cave tunnels to get to the villain poster targets.

I think I had almost as much fun planning this party as the kids had at the party.