Costume Party 2012

Chris and I were Waldo and Carmen Sandiego and Greta-the-great was Mowgli from Jungle book.  We had a hundred ideas of things we could be for Halloween, but when I threw this idea on the table, Chris got so excited about it, we just ran with it.  I have a feeling it could be because it took his 2 minutes to put on his "costume" which was just a striped sweater we picked up at Forever 21 and a hat we ordered.  I also ordered the "hipster glasses"on Amazon for $3.99, and bam, a costume was born.  Also, he can wear that sweater throughout the winter--which is a complete bonus. Kind of like my red wool trench.  Initially, the $50 price tag (at Ross) seemed steep for a costume, but when Chris reminded me I don't always have to wear a red brimmed hat with it, that I could also just wear it throughout the season, I got giddy.  The red hat I ordered online and I added the yellow ribbon myself.

As for Greta's Mowgli costume, I ordered a little nude leotard a month ago online knowing that I wanted her to be Mowgli from Jungle Book for no other reason than I thought she kind of looked like him.  Maybe the hair length?  We wanted her to be more covered, hence the leotard.  For the red diaper-loin-cloth-thing, I got a yard of red fabric and folded and pinned it on her.  That's it.  Oh, and I sprayed her hair dark with that temporary hair spray stuff.  It was the easiest costume and she looked so cute.

Beyond our little jungle baby, you can see our "photo booth" backdrop.  This year, we decided to set the photo op up in the garage.  It worked perfectly!  It kept my brother-in-laws expensive camera and lights safe from the action of the party, but still allowed me to easily sneak everyone out to snap a keepsake photo.  And when it is just me (instead of the whole party) watching, our guests seemed more inclined to be silly for the pictures or want multiples taken.  For the back drop, I picked up 5 yards of this black taffeta with velvety webs on them for $4.99 a yard at JoAnns.  Then we just used push pins to secure it to the ceiling of the garage in a curtain-esque wave.  Originally I had big plans to make a large chalkboard and draw a bunch of creepy drawings for the background, but I'm glad I didn't have time.  This fabric really let the costumes shine. Although, my chalkboard did make it to the party:

3 hours before the party started I panicked because we didn't have anything for the kids to do.  Not that it was a kid's halloween party, but we love to keep our costume parties family friendly since most of our friends have children.  So I carried my chalkboard down to the family room and drew a quick, happy skull on it encouraging the kids to draw something too.  The chalkboard. was. covered (!!) multiple times throughout the night. Luckily, the kids were also happy to run around, get their picture taken, watch a little bit of Harry Potter that we had playing, and eat.

Speaking of eating, on the living room credenza, we had a buffet of candy (Frooties, Reese's, Starburst and Twix) that went over well with everyone, but especially the kids:

...and in the dining room, we rotated our table, decked the halls, and set up the rest of the food.

We were adamant about having all of the food prepared ahead of time this year, so Friday night, Chris and I whipped up all of the sweet treats and Saturday morning, he finished up the rest of the food.

We had pumpkin chocolate chip bread, Reese's pieces cookies, pumpkin cheesecake bites, cut veggies...

...tortilla chips, potato chips and an array of dips that Chris placed in pumpkins, caramel popcorn balls, cake pops (I thought making those was going to be the death of me--I survived!), mulled apple cider and homemade root beer.

It was all delicious.  Chris had extras of almost everything cut up, portioned and ready to refill on the sidelines which kept everything smooth sailing and allowed us to socialize and enjoy ourselves.

Since the food table was an obvious hot spot, we kept the costume voting ballots right next door and then before I tallyed up the votes, I carried the little tray around to make sure everyone had a chance to vote.

This year's winners (we always have three--best adult costume, best child's costume and best couple/group costume) were Lucille Ball, Cookie Monster, and my brother and sister-in-law who dressed up as each other (they might kill me for putting this photo on the blog).

All in all, we had a great time.  My sister in law asked me when everyone else had left, "Are you happy or sad that it is over?"  I responded, "I am just happy it happened!"  Having a party where 40-50 of our friends come to our house in costume will never get old.  Cheers to Halloween!!

Did anyone else hit up a costume party this weekend??