Hello, costume friends! As promised, here are some collage images of all of our family costumes. (I will share the pictures from our 1960s Family Photo shoot very soon!)
Jeff’s outfit consisted of items already in his closet, including a tie that used to his grandfather’s and borrowed vintage glasses.
My ensemble included a vintage dress and shoes from the thrift store, a fabulous floral coat I got for free when a local theatre group disbanded, borrowed glasses, and a hat Jeff’s grandmother loaned me from her collection.
Emma wore a hand-me-down dress and a thrifted blouse and shoes. (She wore these white Mary Janes in The Sound of Music, last summer, when she played the role of Marta von Trapp.) A home-made headband, ribbon bow, and white knee socks finished her look.
All of Elliott’s costume pieces were thrifted, except for the socks and bow tie. He and Oliver wore their matching bow ties in my younger sister’s wedding, last year!
Eliza’s outfit pieces were sourced the same as Emma’s. We’ve gotten lots of use from these white knee socks! I originally purchased a set for Elliott to wear with his knee britches during the party scene in The Nutcracker. Since then, I’ve bought another set in a larger size, too. They work great and stay up!
All of Oliver’s articles of clothing were thrifted except for the shorts-overalls, the bow tie, and the socks. The bright colors of the boys’ blazers convinced me to put the girls in similar colors. I was going to go a more pastel route, but changed my mind!
How cute is Annika’s vintage coat and dress set? I couldn’t believe my luck when I found it at Goodwill. (They tend to hoard all their vintage items until Halloween.)
We already owned the rest of her costume pieces.
As you can see, Annika’s dress and coat were size three, and she was about to turn three when we took these pictures. However, vintage sizes are often smaller than contemporary ones, and Annika is tall for her age! The dress was much too short.
Fortunately, the dress had a deep hem. I took a seam ripper to the stitches, exposing a raw edge. I serged it before giving the dress a new, very narrow hem with blind stitches.
Now that we’ve covered the outfits, I’ll show you how I prepared a cute photo location in our own yard! Those of you who know me know how much I love gardening! This other passion of mine will creep into some of my blog posts. I hope you will bear with me, because many of my projects are inspired by what is in bloom!
At the beginning of spring, I rounded up some thrifted animal planters and gave them to the kids. We planted bluebell bulbs from my mom into each planter.
They became their plant pets! The kids get a kick out of seeing them by our front door and watering them. (We don’t own any other kind of pets, and I hope to keep it that way for as long as possible!)
Once the bulb blooms faded, we decided to plant them in the garden and replace them with flowers that would last all summer.
The kids told me that they wanted marigolds, snapdragons, and violas. (They know their flowers!)
I took a lot of pictures of them planting. This is because this project was part of their gardening class that they were taking from me.
Elliott’s planter actually came from eBay, since an animal planter that he would like never surfaced during several months of thrifting excursions.
Eliza, of course, chose a red snapdragon, among her flowers!
Oliver was torn between wanting to be a part of this, while also objecting to how long it took. Life is hard when you are four years old and have ants in your pants.
Here are the finished plant pets! Well, I’d better start preparing my post with the promised, 1960s family photos. Thanks for sticking with me as I outlined all that went into the outfits and the photo location!
