Holiday Adventures: Halloween 2010

"I totally know what you and Aaron should be for Halloween," Kristin excitedly cooed over the phone. "You two should totally be Mario and Luigi!"

Backstory: Alright, so we play a lot of video games. It started with Aaron's overwhelming need to beat MarioKart Wii. Once we beat that, we moved on to the New Super Mario Bros. (which we have still yet to complete due to the difficulty of the last few levels in the bonus Rainbow World.) We attempted to go back and finish Super Mario Galaxy, which we had rented and never finished, but we didn't want to pay the same price for a lame ol' game when we could get Super Mario Galaxy 2 for the same price. Plus we even found it on sale! I know!  This leads us to Kristin's phone call, before which Aaron and I are sitting on the couch, playing Super Mario Galaxy 2 going back into older levels trying to collect all the coins so we can advance in the bonus round.

"Kristin thinks we should be Mario and Luigi for Halloween," I reported to Aaron. (He smiled and nodded.) "But I get to be Mario, because I am the shorter, chubbier one." ♥

Aaron makes the button-holes
on the straps of our overalls. 

There were a lot of costumes available for purchase, especially online. And a lot of people did a really good job putting together DIY Halloween costumes. I have fond memories of my mom and I making many of the costumes my siblings and I have worn in the past, so I decided to make our Halloween costumes. My mom graciously allowed me to borrow her brand new sewing machine, and she even went to several fabric stores to help me find just the right fabric. I used a clown pattern, with a few DIY adjustments, to make the overalls. The first weekend I tackled Mario's overalls. The biggest problem was the width of the pants, I ended up taking them in by about two inches... twice! Aaron used his nerd problem-solving skills to figure out how to use the button-hole maker on the sewing machine. He did a wonderful job making authentic button-holes that allowed us to have functional overalls!

The next challenge was making Luigi's overalls, mostly because I was about a half a yard short of the needed material. So Aaron and I trekked back to the fabric store and bought more fabric. Having already made the first set of overalls, the Luigi overalls were a lot less stressful, and went pretty quickly. Having purchased the red and green shirts online, and the white gloves from a costume store, the only remaining challenge was to make the hats. I had no pattern, so our hats are completely DIY. I got out one of my many pageboy caps to use as a guide for the bill and the overall look. I was able to shape the front of the hat using white felt, surrounding it with the red and green fabric. I made the Mario hat first, and kind of messed up. I made the Luigi hat, which looks awesome and went back to the Mario hat, which turned out okay. All in all, I am very proud of the costumes.

We were a big hit everywhere we went! We got a lot of wonderful comments from adults and kids alike. I absolutely loved how the itty-bitty kids thought were were the real  Mario and Luigi. Halloween night was kind of awesome. Little kids would shout to us from across the street,
" Mario! I have your game!"  We would wave like celebrities. Aaron would say catch phrases from the game and kids would light up. We even had one family ask to take a picture with us! All of the hard work most definitely payed off. We had a wonderful Halloween!

Mario and Luigi say, "Let's-a-go!"