Cheese costume
She said she wanted to be noodles. Always a challenge her costume ideas have consistently tested my creative abilities. Good thing for Olivia her Mom is an over achiever with a crazy imagination. Pondering her suggestion it took me a while to figure out HOW to make a costume of noodles. Olivia wasn't up front with her own vision of the costume. Maybe she didn't have one. Either way it was difficult trying to bring to life the abstract thought of noodles in a wearable form. I decided to take her suggestion loosely. I needed her to agree. Good thing she is just as open to creative adjustments as I am. We agreed that maybe instead of noodles she could be macaroni and cheese. Once it was settled I set to work collecting the items required to make this costume. There were countless ideas lurking on the internet. Taking cues from various sources I came up with our own version.
I went to the craft store to pick up our macaroni noodles. I bought 3 foam flower wreaths. Actually what I imagined them feeling like was different from what they really felt like. These wreaths are made from hard foam; not quite the texture I anticipated but overall worked out fine. The cutting of the noodles was left for Dad and Olivia. I determined saws and Dads were the best pair and frankly I didn't want to cut these things up while trying to keep an eye on a clever three year old.
I do suggest finding a decent box to put the noodles inside. The box helped keep the fumes from getting out of hand and was a great way to keep the noodles stable. Wearing gloves is highly recommended as the spray paint can be sticky.
I used more boxes to let the noodles dry. The late afternoon sun helped speed the process up. I let the noodles dry for 3 hours. It took one can of paint for all of our noodles.
I went to the craft store to pick up our macaroni noodles. I bought 3 foam flower wreaths. Actually what I imagined them feeling like was different from what they really felt like. These wreaths are made from hard foam; not quite the texture I anticipated but overall worked out fine. The cutting of the noodles was left for Dad and Olivia. I determined saws and Dads were the best pair and frankly I didn't want to cut these things up while trying to keep an eye on a clever three year old.
The next step was to paint the noodles. I selected a good yellow spray paint and a sunny day to get this task complete.
I do suggest finding a decent box to put the noodles inside. The box helped keep the fumes from getting out of hand and was a great way to keep the noodles stable. Wearing gloves is highly recommended as the spray paint can be sticky.
I used more boxes to let the noodles dry. The late afternoon sun helped speed the process up. I let the noodles dry for 3 hours. It took one can of paint for all of our noodles.
The other supplies I needed were a combination of things we had and things we needed to find. I visited the thrift store to find some yellow pants and a yellow shirt. I picked up the yellow ball cap at the craft store. I am a believer in using hot glue guns for crafting so I had one at home. All I needed was more glue sticks. Olivia helped me decide how to glue her noodles on the shirt, pants, and hat. She saved the two smallest noodles for the cap. We put four noodles on her pants and the rest were glued to the yellow adult small t-shirt. I showed her how to use the hot glue gun demonstrating with a few noodles. It wasn't long until she was on her way to gluing the noodles to her costume. When it was done we let the costume cool for another 20 minutes. She eagerly tried it on. Satisfied with the result she was very excited to be noodles for Halloween. And me? Well I'm glad it all worked out. She came up with a great costume idea. Original. Fun. Very Olivia.
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