Every year I can’t wait to see what my boys decide what they want to be for Halloween. The last 2 years they have tried to coordinate costumes, which cracks me up. This year after several I’m going to be _____, they finally decided that they were going to be a cowboy and Indian.  Once the decision is made, there is a week of me asking what are you going to be for Halloween, just to make sure they are still on the same idea before any purchases are made. And they both stuck with the cowboy and Indian idea!

For the Indian costume my son had lots of big ideas, including me making him a full head dress. I am all for a sewing challenge, but was just not up to that one, being our first Trick or Treat was mid October. So we decided on something much simpler a shirt and pants with fringe and a headband with feathers. The material I used was in the costume section of Joann’s. For the pants I just took a pair of pants that currently fit him and made a pattern, there are several tutorials on how to make them, like this one for  pajama pants. For the shirt I used the free sweatshirt pattern from Shwin and Shwin, I have used this pattern for several sweatshirts for my boys and  the fit is great. For the fringe I just folded a long pieces of fabric and cut it about every 1/2 inch and sewed it into the seams, best thing about most costume fabric is it does not fray therefor no finish needed. But I have to be honest, I did finish the edges on the shirt, I think it would have bothered me every time I looked at it (that is my struggle :), by all means leave it unfinished..less work)  I found some Aztec trim that I used for the front of the shirt, bottom of the pants and for the headband. All in all this costume went together in about 2 hours, which made me happy. Even though we did not do all his ideas, my son still loved it.

My youngest just keep telling me he wanted to be a cowboy, so that gave me free reign to make what ever I wanted for him. So after going on Pinterest and looking at cowboy costumes,  I came across a cute cowboy costume at House of Noise..I mean boys. I picked out some faux suede at Joann in dark brown, again using a fabric that does not fray makes sewing costumes much faster.  I used her method for the chaps and vest, using a pair of pants and shirt  that currently fit my son for the pattern. When cutting out the vest pattern I just eyeballed where I thought it should v down for the vest, making sure that I had enough fabric to fold under, since I was going to put buttons on the vest. I add the fringe down the leg and on the vest, again just taking a piece of fabric and folding it over and cutting every 1/2 inch or so. I also added a bull head to the bottom of each chap and the back of the vest out of black leather.

Add a checkered shirt, jean, bandanna, boots and a hat and he is ready to go round up some cattle!

Action shot, photo bombed by the cat.

I cherish these years where my kids still want me to make their Halloween costumes,  in the blink of an eye they are going to be to big to go trick or treating or have mom make them a costume. But for now I love how proud they are of their costumes because no one ever has a costume like theirs.

What are some costumes you are making?

Happy Halloween!

-Mandy