The Kirk's - Boys-R-Us!

My Halloween How-To

A Do-It-Yourself Approach To Our Costumes

Behind The Scenes. . . . Our Inspiration
So Kaiden loves his Disney/Pixar movies and back in September when we drove down to Florida, we brought along our 'Incredibles' DVD as a alternative to the steady favorite - 'Cars'. Well it was no surprise he loved this movie - there is lots of action, flying things, laser beams, robots - Dash. . . . Anyway as Halloween was getting closer and his infatuation with the movie grew stronger the thought came to me, while reading through his 'Incredibles' book one afternoon, that it would be so easy and fun for us to be them for Halloween.

I took a good look at what their super suits were made of, then went online to see if I couldn't just buy all of us a costume - well actually I could have done that but thought that $200 would be better spent else where. So while researching the costumes online I came across a few 'made at home' versions and took my ideas from there.
My Serendipitous Day
So Dave & I already had red dry fit long sleeve shirts and black under armour cold gear tights - Thank God my man is confident & had no issue wearing these in public! Then for the kiddos I needed a red shirt & black pants for Kaiden and a red jumper for Pierce - well as luck would have it Target had a red & black jumper on sale which had some print on the front, but since it was a button down, it was easy enough to flip inside out, and while at our Goodwill store in the same outting, I was lucky enough to find a red long sleeve onsie and black PJ pants that were the right size! Awesome! With those finds the deal was sealed we were going to be the Incredibles, I just had to work on the details to complete our outfits. Oh I should also mention that while at the Goodwill store as we turned the corner to check out, we found the reddish orange 'Syndrome' wig sitting all by itself on a shelf - for $1.91 we snatched it up & I sent the text to Uncle Darin to see if him and Aunt Quincy were in too.

I was SO excited about my finds at Goodwill and then shortly after finding the red jumper at Target, well I was just on a roll! As all good shoppers know you can't go to Target without taking a peek through the dollar bins, and I got us black gloves - love that! And since we actually wear our dry fit Ts I didn't want to ruin them by permanently painting the "I" symbol on there, and since we're kind of in that business I wanted to make a transfer. Well real transfers are also permanent so I needed a temporary solution & did not want the print out, iron on's since irons & polyester aren't the best of friends - enter a roll or self adhesive clear contact paper and acrylic craft paints!

It's All In The Details
I found a logo online that I could manipulate by enlarging or shrinking to fit whose chest would be wearing it & I traced that on white paper & labeled it with the name of the person it was sized for. Then I cut two pieces of contact paper for each symbol, figuring it would be a good idea for each of us to have a back-up symbol in case anything were to happen to the first - better to be safe then sorry, right? After copying each traced symbol on all contact sheets with a sharpie I began the process of painting on the same color for all symbols at one time - should have taken step-by-step photos but forgot. Luckily Mom had an array of craft paints and after doing a sample to check colors and consistency I got them done in a week painting one color each day. The only thing left to complete our outfits was the yellow belt, which I used two pairs of our gold soccer socks & fixed Velcro with adhesive backing to each end & ta-da we were ready to go!The Damron's Part
Then once I knew Darin & Quincy were down to be Syndrome & Mirage we moved on to their details. Again, as luck would have it, Quincy had the grey business suit in her closet & picked up a silver wig at the store to complete Mirage. For Darin there wasn't too much involved to make him Syndrome, believe it or not! Of course I already had the wig, and he had the black shirt & pants, plus the white socks & shoes, so all he needed was the 'S' & the cape. The cape was SO easy & cheap to make! Mel had wrapped Kaiden's gift in this blue plastic disposable table cloth and Mom had some left over black painter's plastic which we taped together with clear packing tape. The final touch was the tie, which was an old velvet belt I had in my closet but had never used, I taped the center of that to the center of the top of the cape to hold it in place, folded the top over on itself and held everything in place with another strip of packing tape. The 'S' had to be custom fit to D, if you know him - or have seen the pictures, he's a big dude & we needed it to look right. So while passing by our way one afternoon he stopped by so I could figure out how big it needed to be and then using a picture of Syndrome from Kaiden's book as a guide I free handed the 'S' the best I could & used a lot of white craft paint to fill it in.

The End Result
Of course I'm slightly biased since it was our family & a lot of my handy work but I think everyone looked AWESOME! We had so much fun walking up and down our street playing the roles of our characters! Kaiden would only answer to 'Dash' that night and of course with the weather and Pierce being so young he didn't get to enjoy in the trick-or-treating but I'd like to think he had fun getting his hair done - he loves the hair dryer! I would say for everything including the wig, gloves, outfits, contact paper, etc. it cost me just at $20 to pull it off! That was Incredible in itself! Can't wait to see what we decided or rather are inspired to be next year! Especially since we'll have one more to add to our cast of characters, since Darin & Quincy are expecting their sweet baby girl in April! Oh what fun times lie ahead! :o)