What do these three characters have in common?

This is Ezio Auditore Di Firenze from the video game Assassin's Creed 2:

This is Yukari Takeba from the video game Persona 3:

And THIS is Luna (the cat) in human form from the Sailor Moon book series:

Any guesses? Any idea what these three characters might possibly have in common? Two are from video games and one from a book/TV series (although I'll state my Sailor Moon ignorance here that I don't know if this character was in both the books and the TV show... I know she is in the books.)

Wanna know? Really? You're gonna laugh... hysterically.

I've been asked to make and/or assist in making them as Halloween costumes! For this year!

Oh, I guess that hysterical laughing was coming from me.

Stay tuned!

Ezio is for Blake. Pretty cool costume, really, and something I'm hoping I can make with fabric from around the house and maybe some craft foam made to look like faux leather.

Yukari and Luna are for Erika and a good friend of hers. They're going to be attending an Anime convention (Oni-Con) that's coming to Houston on Halloween weekend. Erika wants to learn how to sew, so is thinking with some basic lessons from me she'll be able to make these two costumes... so we shall see.

Wish me luck... I think.

This isn't even counting any costumes needed for Paige and Dean... not sure if we'll make them though. I might already have enough on my plate.

Christmas Gifts for little boys...

I saw this idea linked on One Pretty Thing and thought it would be perfect to add to my 'Handmade Christmas' list. I have two little boys - sons of my bestest friend - on my list. They're 2 and 4. The 'car' one is for the 2 year old and I'm going to attempt a 'train' theme on for the 4 year old.

The tutorial is here - it's very straightforward, though. The pockets at the bottom hold cars, the 'road' flips up for play and down over the cars to be rolled up for travel. Perfect for waits at the Doctor's office, going to Grandma's house, etc. I hope they love them!

Here is it rolled up and tied, It has about 4 cars in it so it's pretty bumpy :-)


And here it is opened up. The road flips up and is perfect for a little playtime with the cars.

Child-sized 'Snuggie' for Paige

Everytime that silly informercial comes on, Paige and Blake both say they want one. Now, both can be cold-natured and love snuggling up with blankets, so they actually might really use it.

However, I fear the 'one size fits all' mentality would be a bit harder to maneuver for a 7 year old. Plus, there's no cool patterns available. So using a variety of sources and patterns I found online, I made this one for Paige:

Here's a closeup of the top. The colors are just her style and it's sized nice and roomy for her.

Fleece doesn't fray, so there's no need to finish all edges, but I ran a small hem around the entire perimeter to give it a more finished look.

This is the fleece I'll be using to make Blake's 'Snuggie'. Lessons learned on the first - I think I'll reduce the space across the chest (between the sleeves) and a little bit of the sleeve length for his.

I hope they like them - and actually use them! Now to put them away to hide until Christmas :-)

Baby Shower Goodies

I went to a lovely Baby Shower yesterday for the mom of one of my Girl Scouts. It was a lot of fun - it's been a while since I've been to a shower.

So, with dear hubby laid off from work, I needed to be as frugal as possible. I found some cute patterns online HERE and HERE and made some bib and bootie sets. The booties would have been cute with a coordinating embellished onesie as well, but the mom-to-be mentioned that she had lots of clothes already.

This first set is made from repurposed 'fabric' I had around the house. The backside of the bib and the outside sole of the booties are denim from old jeans. The khaki fabric was once a pair of cargo maternity pants, and the aqua stripe was a cute button-down shirt my son never wore and has outgrown.

This set was just a cute baby flannel that my momma passed on to me - so soft!

And then this one - it's cute on both sides. The doggy flannel came from my Mom and I had the red flannel from another project. This was my daughter's favorite set.

Oh, and the surprise of the shower... ever seen the relay game involving plungers, toilet paper rolls, and no hands? Way too much fun - I haven't laughed that hard in a long, long time.