Our first family Halloween.....

Being relatively new to the world of celebrating Halloween, when it came to all us of needing a dress up costume this year for a party we were invited to I went down a tried and tested path and picked probably the most overdone Halloween costume ever - the Addams Family! Luckily it was quite a quick and easy costume to DIY.

For myself as Morticia Addams, I made a long, tight fitting dress from some black wool crepe I picked up in a garage sale a long time ago that had some mothball damage which I thought was quite appropriate. I made it from a 1989 Butterick pattern - once again my stash of 80s sewing patterns has come in handy!

The dress has a sweetheart neckline and I just made it extra long so I could cut the bottom of the dress below the knee into long trailing bits. I didn't have enough fabric to do similar sleeves, so I had to make do with some sheer sleeves instead. I accessorised with a long black wig, some false red fingernails, and loads of white face paint and black eye makeup.

My husband's Gomez Addams costume was super easy - he already had a pinstripe suit and black bow-tie, all we had to get was a stick on moustache and plastic cigar.

 The kid's costumes were also pretty easy to do. I made Anna a simple a-line dress in plain black with a white collar, both from fabric in the stash. I put her hair in plaits, a bit of white face paint and black eyeshadow under the eyes and she was dressed too.

For Toby's costume I made a simple black and white stripe t-shirt using a Kwik Sew pattern from some ponte I had in the stash - funnily enough this is probably the best quality t-shirt in his wardrobe now! He just wore some RTW black cotton shorts, and a bit of hair gel to make his hair stick up and he was all dressed too.

And sadly I discovered that the real horror of Halloween happens the morning after if you drink a few too many cups of punch after a few too many champagnes! Waking up with a hangover, with false eyelashes hanging off your eyes, your face in a mess of white and black makeup and a splitting headache is a truly scary look......