How my kids challenged my skills this Halloween; or how to make armor from craft foam Part 3 The Final Results!

Ok so if you have followed along thus far, you've seen all of the steps I used in making this year's Halloween costumes.  I finally had time to get the kids back into their outfits and take some nice pictures in the woods behind our house. I'll post the screenshots here as well so you can see a comparison. Enjoy!!

Lily as Twilight Princes Zelda!

Screenshot for Zelda

Twilight Princess Zelda

Colton as Link from Twilight Princess Zelda

Screenshot from Twilight Princess Zelda

Link from Twilight Princess Zelda

And Austin as Ezio Auditore da Firenze

Screenshot from Assassin's Creed II

Austin as Ezio

One final shot of the kids.

Halloween 2013

How my kids challenged my skills this Halloween; or how to make armor from craft foam Part 2

So we left off with Link's Tunic and Hat........I forgot to mention that I used the most awesome spray adhesive to glue all the different armor pieces and details together.

Now on to Austin's choice of character. Ezio Auditore da Firenze from Assassin's Creed II. Here is the screenshot I found online that gave a good view of the basic armor set for this character. The items that were most important for Austin were the hood, the cape, the bracer, and the belt/sash.

Since I was already working with craft foam for Colton and Lily's costumes I started with the belt buckle and bracer first. The bracer is from an "upgrade" armor set not the one in the picture above. The cape we chose was also an upgrade that was black with a red liner. here's a good pic of the bracer.

I didn't find nearly as many or as detailed tutorials online for this character as I did for Link and Zelda, but I did find some that were helpful:

• Ezio cosplay tutorial
• Ezio Belt Buckle
• Ezio Bracer Templates
• Ezio Bracer final pic
• Ezio Hood Pattern

Using the same techniques as the shoulder armor for Zelda, I created this bracer using the templates in the link above.

After this I riveted the "leather" part of the bracer to a piece of faux leather fabric. I tried to use eyelets to allow for leather lacing to tie the bracer onto the arm, but the eyelets wouldn't work, so I just threaded the lacing under the craft foam piece and tied it onto the arm that way.

For the second bracer I just cut a piece of foam, sealed and painted it black. Then I drew a design from a template I made off a picture I found online. I used silver puff paint to fill in the scored design.

The belt piece was a lot of fun to create. First I used this picture to create a template to draw off of:

I edited it in picasa to get a line drawing I could trace by taping it up to the window. Once I had that i cut it apart and cut out the separate pieces you see in the unpainted picture of the buckle below.

 I used the same basic technique as in the second link above. I used a ball point pen in black to draw/score the details into the foam. 

Sealing it with the same glue/decoupage mixture as the other armor I then started with a coat of black paint. Then I did a few coats of sliver paint, rubbing it out of the scored details. Finshed with a watered down coat of black to really make the details stand out and make the buckle look more like it was made out of silver metal.

The cape was another challenge, but I found using the craft foam riveted to faux leather to make the shoulder armor allowed me to sew the cape onto the shoulder piece.  I attached the belt to a piece of red satin. Here's Austin modeling the belt and cape for me.

After a trial run of the costumes as the school's harvest fest, we realized that the cape wasn't as sturdy, so I redid it adding more rivets and faux leather to hold it all together.

The most challenging part of Austin's costume was the hood. It is very iconic and quite specific in design. There were a number of patterns online, but when I used them the effect wasn't right. So, I decided to create my own pattern using the screen shot above.

I spent quite a bit of time taking measurements from the picture and scaling it up to make a usable pattern. I found that using heavy interfacing in the band and point around the opening of the hood gave it the same stiff appearance from the screenshot. Sadly some how the paper pattern pieces have gone missing in the chaos following trick or treating or I'd post pictures of them here. Here are the front and side views of the finished hood:

I ran out of time, so I wasn't able to finish the jacket that the hood should have been attached to.  I choose to tack it to the shirt Austin would wear instead, and I think it made a good substitution. The shirt is from last year's Legolas costume. I made it from an off the rack shirt I found at Goodwill (notice a trend here?) that I replaced the sleeves on with fabric taken from a shower curtain!

When it was all said and done I think the whole costume turned out rather well! See part three for pictures of the kids in their finished costumes!

How my kids challenged my skills this Halloween; or how to make armor from craft foam Part 1

This Halloween the kids really challenged my costume making skills!
All three kids chose characters from video games this year as their costumes. Colton and Lily wanted to be characters from  game series called Zelda. The main character is Link. An Elven like warrior. Zelda is the princess. Of course having played the game in my twenties I figured, sure no problem!! What I wasn't aware of when I first agreed to this scheme was that in the specific incarnation of these characters that my children wanted to be Zelda wears jeweled armor! Here's a screenshot of Lily's chosen character:

So, after I see this, Colton says to me, "Mom, I'm not sure you can do that!" Hahaha!! Challenge Accepted!!! Colton's chosen character of  Link also has leather bracer and a very specific looking hat. Here's a pic of who he wanted to be:

So off I go to the internet to see if I can figure out how to make armor. Thankfully I found some amazing tutorials on http://www.deviantart.com/ ! While doing research for these costumes I was awed by the amazing talent out there in the cosplay world! Here are just a few examples of the posts I used to guide me in my quest for realistic looking costume armor and accurately depicted clothing:

• Zelda Twilight Princess armor tutorial
• Link's Bracer tutorial
• Zelda's Armor design templates
• Link's hat

So, after what seemed to me like days of research I bought the supplies and got to work! I started with Lily's armor because it seemed like the most time consuming of the two.  

Using the templates I found I cut out and formed the base pieces of the Zelda shoulder armor:

I think it is so very cool that you can heat up the craft foam over a range top burner and get it to hold a form!!

After laboriously cutting out the detail pieces with an x-acto knife and gluing them to the base pieces I painted each piece front and back with 2 coats of Elmers Glue all mixed with some water and a bit of glossy decoupage. Then after that was dry I painted them gold using artists acrylic.

Then after two coats of gold paint, I rubbed a bit of watered down black over them to take down the "shine" a bit and make them look more like real armor.  I did the same with the chest piece and added beads that were part of a necklace I found  on clearance at a local accessory store. I used wire to help keep the top of the shoulder piece in the shape required and also to create loops to attach the chest piece to. Here's Lily trying on the finished shoulder/chest armor:

Following all the same steps I made her crown that I attached to some 16 gauge copper wire that I bought at the hardware store (it's WAY cheaper there than at a craft store btw). Here's the finished crown:

I found a long brunette wig at Goodwill and restyled it to match Zelda's hair style as best as I could. I think it turned out pretty good!

For Link's bracer I had to create my own template from pictures off the internet.  Then, I followed the same process but instead of painting it I stopped at the glue/decoupage step because the finished piece needed to look like brown leather, and the craft foam was already brown.

For Link's hat and tunic I found great patterns online. The tunic was amazingly simple to create using one of Colton's t-shirts in order to get the basic shape. 

Using a fake leather purse I found at Goodwill and an old belt I created Link's sword belt and his inventory belt. I also bought sand art necklaces and filled the bottles with colored water to make his potions.

Thankfully, I didn't need to make pants this year having already made brown faux suede pants for Colton's Robin hood costume.

In Part 2, I'll go over what I did to create Austin's costume and post the final results!

Frugal cooking--Request for recipe submissions!!!

Hello dear readers!! I have a HUGE favor to ask of you.  I'm trying to get out of a cooking rut AND save money. Both things are hard but possible, doing them together are causing me to pull out hair.

So in an effort to not go bald and accomplish the above goals I'm turning to you! Please please please send me your "meals on the cheap" recipe ideas.  My hope is to try to get our food bill for all our meals for 5 people to under $400 a month.  And I'm trying to stay with WHOLE FOODS. The parameters of the recipes are simple:

• Limited pre-made food as ingredients. I'd like to stay away from boxed/canned/jarred stuff.
• No BEANS. I don't eat them or like fixing them.
• Limited casseroles. The kids are NOT big fans. 
• If your recipe has an unusual ingredient PLEASE give me an idea of where to find it.

Don't limit yourself to main dishes!! I'd love to see some side dish ideas and ways of preparing traditional sides that are original but cheap!

My plan is to try out EVERYTHING you guys send me that fits the parameters and then post both the recipe (giving you credit of course and linking to where ever on the net you want me to in that credit) and the family's reactions to it here on my blog.

You can email me here, post on my Facebook page here if we are friends, "tweet" me a link to your own recipe blog here, or post the recipe or link in the comments below.

Please include:

• The recipe!!! (duh!)
• An estimate on how many people it feeds and how long it takes to prep.
• Your name or the name you want to go by in my blog.
• Where you found the recipe if it isn't your own personal creation or one you have significantly modified from the original. (have to give credit where credit is due!)
• A link to your own blog if you wish me to link back to you in my review post.
• Any other information your little heart desires me to know!

I'll make a button soon for you to put on your blog if you want.

Thank you!!!!!

Keeping lunches fun and cheap! Peaches glorious peaches!

In an effort to lower our food budget and still get healthy foods into my kids I have been doing a lot of freezing and canning this year. We've grown quite a bit, harvested a lot, and I've gotten pretty lucky finding deals on produce both at farmers markets and local produce from our nearby grocery stores.

Recently I found Organic Maryhill peaches (from Washington State) on a one day special at our local store for only $0.98 a pound! So I bought $10 worth!
But what to do with all of those peaches?? My first idea was to make my own fruit cups for the kids to take for their lunches. So here's how I did that:

First I washed the peaches by soaking them for a few minutes in a veggie/fruit wash and cold water.

Next I gathered all the supplies I would need: muffin tins, muffin papers (heavy waxed ones), honey, sugar, cinnamon sticks, and a large pot of water on to boil.

I lined the tins with the papers:

 Next I set to simmer 2 cups of water, 1 cup of honey, one cup of organic sugar, and 1 cinnamon stick to make a simple syrup.  After the sugar and honey have dissolved turn off the heat and let it cool while doing the next steps.

In order to peel the peaches quickly I used this time honored technique. a.) cut x's in the bottom of all the peaches, b.) drop them in the pot of boiling water, c.) pull them out when the skin of the peach starts to curl up at the x (about 30 seconds), d.) drop into ice water to cool, e.) then the peel will come right off.

Next up chop up the peaches into bite sized chunks and toss with some citric acid, lemon juice, lemon crystals to help keep them from browning. 

Fill up the muffin cups about 2/3rds of the way with the chopped peaches.

Next pour in cooled simple syrup until the fruit in the cup is just covered. This helps prevent freezer burn and keeps the peaches looking pretty! (totally optional, but a nice touch)

After both trays are filled I put them in the freezer stacking them with a cookie sheet inverted over the top of the bottom tray that they didn't nest.

Here's a picture of one of the trays frozen:

Next I used a butter knife between the paper and the tin in order to pop out each of the cups. 

Finally I put the cups in a zip top freezer bag and squeezed out as much of the air as I could, and put the whole thing back in the freezer. 

The peach cups are now ready to go into my kids lunch boxes. The average price for a store bought fruit cup of peaches made with hfcs is about $0.85 each. I used about 4 lbs of peaches (at $0.98/pound) to make 24 cups here, that comes out to around $0.17 per cup!! And they are made with healthier sugars and a much lower amount.