Yes You Can Costumes

Making the Extraordinary from the Ordinary

Marzipan Behind the Scenes Bloopers – Homemade Nutcracker

Hello, friends! I’m going to try to take pretty pictures and still keep things real on this blog. So, in that spirit, I am going to give you the scoop: Taking group shots of these little rascals is HARD.

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Annika, stop chewing the scenery.

So hard, in fact that I considered scrapping this photo shoot midway through. However, I would have missed out on some beautiful moments . . . And the gift of these bloopers that will make us laugh for years to come!

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Elliott wasn’t feeling it at the start of the photo shoot.

I like the side-eye Eliza is giving me in the first image, and Annika’s fierce, cookie-biting face in the second.

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I wanted the kids to be lined up from youngest to oldest, but Annika had other ideas . . . Then, I had to tell the older ones to just let her in wherever. They were trying to be good and tell Annika where she was *supposed* to go, but that was only causing a new kerfuffle.

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Easily the most exhausting part of photographing a group of young ones is to convince all of them to be as flexible as *you*, the photographer, have to be!

Oliver knows how to smile ’til it hurts…

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At this point, I was thinking, “Perhaps it really is unreasonable to expect everyone to look simultaneously thrilled to be here”.

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Eliza saw me editing this next series of photos and laughed so hard that she “let loose” . . . If you know what I mean. Right next to me. At the computer desk.

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You’ve been warned: Laugh responsibly.

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Eliza is like, “BEEBS. Staaahhhp!!!”

. . . Annika doesn’t look at all mischievous, here . . .

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. . . Oliver was over it, and Eliza must have decided, “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em!”

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Eliza was disgruntled when I asked her to only use the recorder as a prop, as God intended.

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I mean, let’s be real: A recorder does not usually render beautiful music when in the hands of a small child.

However, I’ll give Eliza the last word in this homage to her amazing, recorder-inspired facial expressions.

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I allowed Eliza some free rein, then ask her to do a few “normal” faces. This is when she sternly told me “Next time, I get to pick how to be in the pictures”.

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The photo on the right is Eliza setting me straight on who is really in charge of this operation.

. . . Aaannnddd, last but not least, this is what is really happening behind the scenes: Jeff is there with his steady patience and amazing child-wrangling skills. He is the master of coaxing unwilling smiles and keeping everyone upbeat. (Including me!)

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Speaking of Jeff, I may be the one making the costumes, but his calm support makes all of this possible. His presence turned something stressful into something enjoyable. And, you know what? I got lovely shots, after all.

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Marzipan Reed Flutes – Homemade Nutcracker

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My little woodland elves and I finished making their mitts and pins! It was time to dress up and celebrate outside, at the height of autumn. I will also take this opportunity to introduce you to some of our most beloved trees; both living and deceased. R.I.P.

Our birch tree is always lovely, but it is positively stunning in the fall!

The Japanese maple in our front planter makes a natural shelter that our kids duck inside and fondly call their “house”.

I made it even more homey with an arch made of a thrifted, silk sunflower garland and a beaded garland I found on Facebook Marketplace. I wound them onto two shepherd’s crooks and secured them with baggie ties.

Various pumpkins and squash from our own garden and some from family and friends decorated the bases of the arches. (I stole them from our own front porch display!)

Not everyone was a huge fan of the marzipan cookies we made for this homage to The Nutcracker Suite. Emma and Annika compensated by trying to eat all of them!

Oliver ran off from the group photo session and jumped on the swing. Sometimes, photographing small children is more like being a wildlife photographer than an artist. You have to just work with whatever the creatures ae doing in their natural habitat!

Our three, little, lady elves model their handmade mitts.

Considering our family’s large, musical instrument menagerie, it is rather surprising that we don’t own any flutes! Jeff’s clarinet is a reed instrument, but it didn’t suit the vibe I was going for. So, I chose a recorder as our token woodwind instrument for this photo shoot. (After all, the alternate name for the “Marzipan” piece in The Nutcracker is “Dance of the Reed Flutes”.

Everybody, grab on! I was going for an age-order lineup, but I decided to be happy that they were in a line, at all.

I’m pretty sure that Annika was plotting mischief in this photo.

After a bit, I took our operation to the backyard. This is what the back garden looks like in November! It’s a bit mouldery and spooky.

One, lonely pumpkin and skeletal, sunflower “scarecrows”.

However, there is always beauty to be found, if I look for it hard enough! We moved my little sunflower and squash arrangement by some wild grass.

Green is Emma’s favorite color. It suits her, don’t you agree?

Our munchkins with their “reed flute” and marzipan.

Annika took full advantage of this opportunity to eat as many cookies as she could!

This rainbow assortment of hand-made hats are all hand-me-downs from friends or the thrift store (Eliza’s).

Little Ollie Elf!

Action shots seemed like the way to go with our busy, little guy!

Elliott, the Elf Prince. He was perched on the remains of our giant fir tree that fell over on New Year’s Day, 2020. (We probably should have taken that as an omen.)

Remains of pokeweed in the foreground. It’s pretty, but obnoxious. I need to deal with it, this year, and I’m not looking forward to it!

Eliza was the Miss Congeniality winner of this event. She is a funny mixture of sweetness and seriousness, but she morphs into a goofball whenever I turn on the camera.

She is definitely our whimsical, fairy child.

It was fun to include the pumpkins that she and Oliver painted at preschool. This purple one, decorated by Oliver, just happened to match the color palette I chose for this project!

Mitt models . . .

At some point, we will need to remove this enormous log. In the meanwhile, the kids enjoy climbing on it.

Those large, silvery-sage green rosette plants are Great Mulleins that I transplanted from family property at Lake Chelan. Their frosty, fuzzy leaves looked enchanted next to my green girl!

The layers and textures of the costume pieces we put together turned out just as I had hoped.

Autumn always makes me think of cozy colors, layers, and textures. Perhaps like the layers of the colorful, falling leaves.

And . . . JUMP!!!

Our dogwood trees are also well beloved by our children. They are gorgeous in any season: Flowering in spring, apple green leaves in summer, red leaves and berries in the fall, and shapely, bare branches in winter.

That’s what I like about them, anyway. If you ask the kids, they will tell you that the dogwoods are special because they are perfect climbing trees! We have one with white blooms in the backyard, and one with pink flowers in the front yard.

Annika was not about to be left behind! She managed to scramble to the first fork in the tree.

The cold was finally getting to us. See her pink, little nose?

We went inside to get warm right after these pictures were taken. I hope that these cozy, cheery colors, and woolen accessories warmed your heart as well!

In an upcoming post, I’ll show you how I put together the entire outfits for our Woodland Marzipan Elves. Almost every article of clothing was already in the kids’ wardrobes!

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