Halloween Corporate Sell Out

Well it was bound to happen. We were so proud of ourselves last year when we created quite possibly the best Halloween costume ever (in our humble opinions, of course.) Here's a picture of Ellie as the cutest s'more ever.



There are two reasons why it was the best costume ever. First, it cost us hardly anything to make. I think we ended up spending a total of $1.20 on it. Second, it was completely homemade and original. There wasn't another little s'more running around. Ellie was completely unique. We were so proud of ourselves - me especially because it was my idea in the first place.

Unfortunately, we set the bar too high. We have been struggling for over a month now trying to figure out Ellie's Halloween costume for this year and we've continually failed to find a costume that could even rival the success of the s'more costume. I'm so bummed.

In the past few days, we've researched the idea of making a homemade butterfly costume, a penguin costume, and a ladybug costume. But none of them seemed like the silver bullet. Finally, this morning I went searching for a way to make a ladybug or penguin costume. The base of both costumes would be an adult size sweatshirt ($5.80 at Walmart) and then adding embellishments like white fleece for the penguin or black felt circles for the ladybug, plus some sort of head gear.

While running around, I made a quick stop at Old Navy and discovered their Halloween costumes were 40% off. There was even a ladybug costume for $13.50. How could I possibly pass it up? Even if we went with the homemade route, we would probably spend as much as $13.50 on a ladybug costume and I would have to spend the time cutting up black felt circles and gluing them to the sweatshirt, I'd have to figure out the antennae on the head, etc. etc. Buying the costume was not only the easy way out, but the most affordable. And I have a personal motto - never make anything that you can buy for the same price already made.

So Ellie is going to be the cutest ladybug there is. And she will be wearing the ladybug costume from Old Navy that every other cute little toddler girl could buy. We sold out. Oh well, it was bound to happen someday. Perhaps, I will be inspired next year.