Happy Halloween!

This is the first year in many that I haven’t prepared a Halloween costume. While I don’t have access to photos from every single Halloween I’ve ever celebrated, here’s a sampling of some of the “ghosts” of my Halloweens past!

Pre-school Years: A repurposed dance recital ensemble turned Tooth Fairy costume. Yes, Tooth Fairy. See the tinfoil wand that says “Tooth Fairy” at the top? What can I say? I come from a family of dentists, and I was easily impressionable.

More pre-school years: I’m a store-bought bunny, and my brother is a skeleton. My mom made the skeleton costume herself by tediously cutting white felt into bone shapes and sewing them onto black sweats. My mom is awesome!

1990: I’m a non-politically-correct Native American. One of my favorite costumes, despite the fact that a boy in my class was also a non-politically-correct Native American that year, and everyone said we were going to get married, which is a traumatizing statement in the first grade.

1992: I was a “50’s girl” complete with a poodle skirt and a silky pink jacket from the Mirage in Las Vegas… because every girl from the 1950’s had a Vegas jacket. LOL!

1994: I was a mime. Not pictured, as it was one of my most embarrassing costumes. However, if you ask my mom, it was one of her favorites and she’ll show you pictures. So don’t ask my mom.

With the exception of freshman year (when I didn’t know any better and wore a Dorothy costume to school), I didn’t dress up in high school. I went to a Catholic school with a strict dress code and there were just too many restrictions to even bother. Back then, we were just happy if we were allowed to wear blue jeans. And I didn’t dress up in college because I consider myself a person who values dressing tastefully and appropriately, and dressing up isn’t an option in college if you dress appropriately.

After college, I moved to central Florida and started spending a lot of time at Walt Disney World… after a long hiatus of no Halloween costumes to my name, I was excited to jump back in to the wonderful world of Halloween – especially in a place where awesome, appropriate costumes are valued. All of the sudden, Halloween was fun again!

2006: I was determined to dress up as my favorite Disney character, Wendy Darling, and ordered a handmade Wendy costume from Kelly’s Costumes. I wore it to Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party with some friends who dressed up as Peter Pan and Tinker Bell!

2007: Because I just couldn’t get enough – Wendy returned.

2008: I debuted TWO costumes in 2008 for two separate parties! One Tinker Bell costume, complete with light-up fairy wings and – my favorite – poof ball shoes. I was so adamant that the shoes be exactly the way I pictured them that I made them myself – celery green Prima Crocs with a poofball sewn on top.

And one Mouseketeer ensemble, easily created with a white t-shirt, iron-on letters and a custom set of Mickey Mouse ears.

2009: Two chefs hats, a chef jacket, some red hair dye and an “Eiffel-tower-on-a-stick” created the perfect Remy and Linguine costumes from the movie Ratatouille. I wore all gray and pinned craft-foam rat ears to my chef hat. I also decoupage’d that pretty fab version of the cookbook from the movie!

That brings us to last year, which was the first year I sewed a Halloween costume! I dressed up as Boo, and I sewed this gigundo Mike Wazowski costume!

So why no costume this year? Well, at the risk of sounding like I’m full of excuses, I’ve just been too busy with school, and dressing up as an MBA student is kind of boring.

But in a dream world, this is what I really would have liked to be this year… maybe this is something I can sew for next year? If I get started… now… I might just finish in time… 🙂

Any fun Halloween costumes in your world this year?