Vintage Halloween

I am a lazy mother who buys her kids Halloween costumes at Walmart or Kmart or whoever still has something decent left on the shelf before we finally go shopping. I balance out that laziness by taking them trick or treating in a friend's neighborhood where the kids stay out insanely late and they get more candy in one night than I did in my entire childhood.

I got my share of candy, but the amount that my kids have brought home the past few years just staggers the imagination...

When I was little, my mother and grandmother made my costumes.  Like this one:

There was a cape, and a dress, and a separate little collar the buttoned at the back of the neck. After Halloween, my sister and I played dress-up in it. I thought it was long gone, but a few weeks ago, my mother found the cape in a drawer. 

I can't believe that those cotton balls survived so many years. The outlines look like they're yarn -- that can't have been easy to do!  

Seriously, Grandma went all out when she made Halloween costumes. I made a Teletubby costume for my daughter when she was two and La La's spiraly antennae just about did me in. Since then, I've been a lazy mom and bought their Halloween costumes.

Does it help to balance it out that I've made an alligator scarf with three dimensional scales,  a shark hat with individual teeth, a Dead Fish Hat, a fireman hat, and a Weasly Sweater, and that one year I knit a turkey hat on the drive up to Thanksgiving dinner?

This post is linked to Time Travel Thursday, Treasure Hunt Thursday, Vintage Thingie Thursday, Share Your Cup, We Call it Olde, and Ivy and Elephants.