Our costume decisions were made rather last minute this year. Grammy is a sewing wonder, so she put together Emmaline’s beautiful Dorothy dress in just a few days. Micah’s costume was up to me. The thing is, I didn’t inherit any of those sewing skills, but I’m kind of a stickler about homemade costumes. It feels like cheating to buy a costume straight off the rack.
My first tin man thoughts involved dryer vents and hat boxes, but Micah is all about comfort and I knew he wouldn’t be happy for more than two minutes in something with the slightest bit of stiffness or itchiness.
So with some brainstorming help from my mom, here’s what I came up with:

Dsc 7506

Yes, the magic ingredient in his costume was spray paint! I bought el cheapo pants and a turtleneck at WalMart, and a plastic funnel from the auto department and spray painted them silver. I simply put some paper between the layers of cloth, sprayed, let dry, flipped, and sprayed again. It wasn’t terribly shiny, but enough to get the effect. The funnel was easy to paint inside and out and then I used an awl to make holes for the elastic band. The heart is made from red and white foam sheets and safety-pinned on from the inside. The crocs were bound for the trash because of the gaping hole in the toe, but I sprayed them silver too for one last night out.
I had to air it out for a few days, but the great thing was the paint didn’t stiffen the fabric at all so it was probably one of the most comfortable costumes ever.

Dsc 7524

.