Halloween Recap

Since I talked about the costumes a fair amount, I figured I'd provide finished pics. (So this post is heavy on the kids pics).

The coats turned out well.  The weather was great for Halloween, but I think they were better than putting a turtleneck on underneath the leotards.  The gold stars are applied with Modge Podge Fabric--I'm in love with this stuff.  It is just like Modge Podge, but has the consistency of mayonnaise (it is for fabric on fabric--applique, basically).  Stars stayed on like a champ; it claims to be washable, but we haven't tested that yet.

We had dance class, a bowling party, pumpkin carving, and Nutcracker rehearsals before Trick or Treating, so it was a packed day.  Luckily, we did our photos on Friday.  For the second year in a row, I checked the kids out at noon for this important obligation.  

Next year I will stand my ground and disallow the fall leaves background.  It was the first one, and they wasted "juice" on something I didn't want to purchase.  Oh well.  They did have this carnival background, which was pretty crazy.

Henry was not cooperative.  That mustache stayed on for 60 sec.  He broke the weight in the dressing room, which is why it looks floppy and was barely used (it is from an Oh Happy Day tutorial).  While we picked him up at the end of his class party and he has a cold, I'm pretty sure the trouble was that he had no idea what was going on--the last time he was in a photo studio is when he was 7 days old.  Oops.  We'll make sure to get some practice in before next Halloween.  The whole shoot took an hour...and the girls took about 20% of that time.  The rest was coercing Henry to get in front of the camera.  And then facing the camera, and not leaning on the background.

The Marvelous Molly, tightrope walker extraordinaire, was really into upping the make-up game.  She thought the fake eyebrows were the best, and thought people might not even recognize her at the bowling party (yep, that was a costume party).  I gave it my best shot on the eyebrows, but I think the overdrawn lips worked (see the last photo for proof).  I think I've converted her to my love of ostrich feathers.

The Flying Eilene, trapeze artist, is easy--this is her 9th Halloween shoot, after all.  I think all that time in a ballet studio is good--mirrors everywhere.  She had to wrestle Henry a few times, so the stars were showing some wear by the end of the session (or, after the first backdrop....), but otherwise it held up well.  Her gold cape never showed up from China, so we made a last minute trip to Joann's on Wednesday and grabbed some "performance fabric"--it drapes better than lamé.  

I was pleased with this year's costumes.  I'll miss making circus costumes from leotards off Amazon and eBay.  But I want to assure all of you that these costumes cost an obscene amount of money--I'm not spinning gold out of straw over here.  We averaged just over $100 a person, with shoes and props.  Mostly, sequins are expensive.  Next year they can be pioneers.

I do have 2 extra tutus for Molly, one bad gold cape, and one extra parasol...so maybe that kind of trial and error is the real culprit.  

Back to regularly scheduled programming very soon :)