First Halloween - Little Shop of Horrors!

Z's first Halloween was a pretty huge success, considering that most Halloween activities are at the absolute worst time for small children.  Our family costume was a Little Shop of Horrors theme!  I was Audrey, Michael was Seymour, and Z was (the small version of) Audrey II, the man-eating plant!

Yes, those are lipstick marks on his head...I can't help myself with that sweet face.

This costume idea was planted (heh) in our heads way before I even got pregnant!  We are huge fans of the  movie/musical, and we knew that, little boy or little girl, this was going to be the first Halloween costume for our baby. 

I was very pleased with the result! 

I made Z's costume myself, because I had a feeling there wasn't a huge market for infant man-eating plant costumes.  It was pretty easy and only took me a few hours on a Sunday afternoon, and there was NO sewing involved!

I found a green thermal body suit from Old Navy at a wonderful secondhand store called Once Upon a Child, and then I went to a craft store to get red and white felt (this particular felt had a bit of glitter in it, which I thought was fun), yellow paint, green bias tape, and some artificial leaves and other plant accessories.

I lined the inside of the hood with the red felt (I just used hot glue; fabric glue would also work), and then used the light green bias tape and small triangles of white felt  glued around the outside of the hood to create Audrey II's "lips" and teeth.

Then I used bits of red felt and yellow fabric paint to create the outside "shell" of Audrey II.  This was the most time consuming only because it took about four hours for the paint to dry.  Then I just pulled bits of leaves off of the artificial plant and glued them to the arms and legs of the costume.

Our costumes were easy.  I borrowed the wig (it's nice to have theatre friends with a stash of wigs and costume pieces!), the dress/belt/shoes were all mine, I got Michael's sweater vest at Goodwill and the rest of his costume came from his closet.

My shoes were leopard print, too!

Z looked adorable,and he was such a sweetheart at the Fall Festival where we took him to show him off! 

It was so much fun to enjoy Halloween with a baby, and to see our vision realized! It would have been so easy to just buy him an infant costume from a store, but this was so very us and now we have such awesome memories of his first Halloween!