Halloween Gnomes

My brother Ryan had this idea that Avery should be a gnome for Halloween when she was a baby. Something about her round little rosy cheeks made her a perfect candidate. I meant to do it that year, and then the next year, but didn't get around to it.

But now that I have two round rosy cheeked children (and probably the last year that Avery won't care what she is, and I can force them to dress up like I want them to)....this was the year.

For inspiration we looked to our favorite gnome book, that teaches us all about the secret lives of gnomes.

Gnome children use winged seeds of the maple to play at being Dragonflies

For Avery's costume I used a pattern from Carefree Clothes for Girls to make her purple dress (I dyed white linen with purple, red, and black dye to get the right dusty lilac...I am hoping it will fade a little more with washing). Her petticoat is from April Cornell and is one of those things I just always wanted to get if I ever had a little girl, so I used this as an excuse. It will be a sweet nightgown from now on. I made her apron using embroidered cotton ribbon I found surprisingly at JoAnne's, and chain stitched some gold roving for the ties. He leggings are just some we had already from the Gap.

The fact is, I am way too lazy to put as much work as sewing a costume takes if its not something they will wear again, so I put this together with that in mind. I have to make a few additions to the dress now that she is done wearing it as a costume, but I love this dress. If you look closely you can see that the bodice is quilted. So fun. Perfect for a gnome. And there is a good chance it will also be her Easter dress.

One of their favorite pastimes is cuddling and bottle feeding the neighborhood baby rabbits.

For the hats I just used cheap red felt and kind of measured their heads and made up a pattern.
I was happy they came out how I imagined and looking very gnome-like.

I started making a blue felt costume for this little man but he has ear infections and just didn't seem up for it so I abandoned his outfit. Also, it turns out he HATES wearing a hat and will pull it off the minute it touched his head (what am I going to do this winter?!). Getting a picture was almost impossible.

Gnome babies are always born as twins: two girls, two boys, or a boy and a girl.

chocolate bribes were used with small success.

We also ended up carving a few of the pumpkins we grew. Really I did all the hard parts while Trav worked and Avery listened to Monster Mash over and over again on Youtube and I yelled at everyone to come have a fun-time-together-darn-it (forced family fun). After I got them all nicely cleaned out Avery drew a face on hers and Trav carved it and Ollie sat next to me putting pumpkin pieces in his mouth while I carved his (the one with the two little top teeth like him).

With her cute friend Charlie checking out their haul

We topped off the fun with an evening of trick or treating with our friends the Butlers. Their neighborhood is awesome for little kids running door to door. And the weather was fabulous!
All in all a successful Halloween!