Lego Minifig Halloween Costume

http://allthingsshea.blogspot.com/2010/10/eldests-projects.htmlToday I wanted to share something that I am absurdly proud of, The Eldest's Lego Minifig Halloween Costume!

 

(This is sans child of course since he's at school as I'm writing this up.)

There have been lots of Mommy hours put into this project.    It all began with this inspiration.  I want to thank those guys for creating these costumes and putting up such great pics of the whole process.

Some details:
1.  The mouth is made of screen that has been painted to resemble teeth.  The wearer of the costume can easily see out, but unless you are very close, you can't see in.
2.  The head began as styrofoam and posterboard that I covered in three layers of joint compound.  After much sanding, it was spray painted within an inch of its life a tradional Lego yellow.
3.  The hands were constructed in a similar way.  The child will hold the paper towel tubes that are connected to the hands.
4.  The torso piece was put together from a couple of different boxes and was to me, the hardest part of the whole project.
5.  The face was hand painted on with acrylic craft paints.
6.  For the logo, I did a google search and grabbed an image, then threw it into Gimp to enlarge and clean it up.  Once that was done, I Modge Podged it on.
7.  Everything has been sealed with a clear gloss sealer spray paint.

You can see how the process came about here and here.


From the top:

From the back:

The Eldest will be wearing a long sleeve red shirt (mine) to cover his hands while he is holding the hands part of the costume.  For the legs, he's going to wear black pants and regular old tennis shoes.  I'll probably have to lead him around so he doesn't run over his friends.  There is no peripheral vision when wearing the head piece.

Want to know how excited I am about this project?  Well, let's just say that The Eldest and I may have to arm wrestle over who gets to wear it on Halloween.  :)

Paper Mache Space Shuttle

I keep repeating to myself, "On Friday it will all be over, On Friday it will all be over, On Friday..."  I've been so bogged down in projects for the Eldest for the past two weeks that I've had zero time to work on anything for myself.  Not really for myself, but projects that I am wanting to complete.  I've got a couple of super secret Christmas Gift knitting projects that have been stalled and I'd really like to get back to work on them.

One of the projects that the Eldest is working on is way beyond anything that I ever did in 4th grade.  He had to read five books, take a test on them, do a thinking map for each book, complete a bibliography for each, create a project that shows off his topic (which was space) and make a presentation on it which for him also will be including a powerpoint slide show.   I never had to do anything like this until I was in high school.

I have never seen a 10 year old yet that had any sort of time management skills.  I've had to stand over him for the past two months with a whip in order for him to get this thing finished.  It didn't help that he chose to make such a huge (1/40th scale) and involved creative project either.  But, it's finally finished!  We just have to get it safely to the classroom tomorrow morning.

Here's the final product:

In retrospect, we should have gone without an opening cargo bay, but this is what he wanted.  It does open and they do have tiny little one inch hinges holding them on.  He applied a thick coat of Modge Podge to it last night to seal it and harden it a little bit more.  I'm very proud of him with this project.    Not many 10 year olds could tackle a paper mache project of this size and have it turn out this well.  I think it turned out great, but I'm just a wee bit biased!

Pumpkin Decorating

This year I haven't had a lot of time for Halloween yard decorating.  In fact, I decided that I really didn't want to carve a pumpkin either.  My solution?  Make a Mummy O' Lantern.  I also took a page from Centsational Girl's book and made a small Vampire punkin.

The Mummy O' Lantern was super easy.  I used spray mount adhesive and stuck two large googly eyes to the front.  Then, after spraying more adhesive to the rest of the pumpkin, I applied strips of cheesecloth around it trying not to be too neat about it.  Instant Mummy!

I did put up a few spiderwebs, spiders and skeletons around the front door:

Can ya find me in the pic? :) The Autumn flowers are totally fake.  I put them in my planter every year in the Autumn and don't worry about them again until it's Christmas and I replace them with some fake poinsettias.


The skeleton on the door was a Dollar Tree find:

A tree:

Notice the fall Auburn football flag in the background. War Eagle!

And even the mailbox got some attention this year:

 

The yard decor is not as elaborate as I usually do, but it's still fun for the kids.    

The Eldest's Projects

This is how my garage looks today. 


There's the head of the giant Lego Man Halloween costume for the Eldest that has the joint compound drying:

And the hands:

As well as an upside down Space Shuttle where he has applied the black paint:

All of my projects are geared towards the Eldest child this week.  I'm so looking forward to this week being over!  I really need to concentrate on Christmas crafting.