Too many tricks and not enough treats

I'm getting annoyed at how busy I've been the last few months, because always the first thing to go is my stitching time. The latest obligation was making the Beadboys' costumes, which I promised them a while back. It wasn't too bad, but next year I may give myself a break and go store-bought.

Beadboy2 is a knight, since he has been slaying imaginary monsters and bad guys with a nerf sword, tree branches, a yard stick, a wooden spoon, a toothbrush -- basically anything he could get a hold of. A few years ago I made Beadboy1 a robot costume using tinfoil-covered cardboard --
-- so I recycled that idea for the breastplate. After I cut it out from cardboard I brought it to Beadboy2 to make sure it was not too big, and the ungrateful child complained "mommy, why did you make it out of that? It's supposed to be gray [metal]. Why isn't it gray? Mommy, it has to be gray." I then brushed a thin coat of thin white glue to the front, and placed a sheet of tinfoil on top. I folded over the edges of the foil and secured it with duct tape, and added gray bias tape for the ties. Et voila:
I wanted to paint a cute coat-of-arms on the front, but Beadboy2 wouldn't hear of it. So he painted a knight (red blob at the top of the coat-of-arms), a robot (purple rectangle in the lower right corner), a robot knight (purple blob in lower half of coat-of-arms), and two Gs, his initial.

For a shield, I covered a frisbee with duct tape, and formed a duct tape handle on the back.

Again, Beadboy2 was the artist. The orange stick figure is me, the G is self-explanatory, the black blob by my head is a hand ( . . . I don't know), the big red blob is an apple with a big stem, and the small red blob is a space ship that is going to get the apple ( . . . yeah).

The rest of his "armor" (which I forgot to take a picture of) consists of disposable foil loaf pans folded in and shaped into greaves, shin guards, etc., an idea I got from Martha Stewart.

Beadboy1's dragon costume was a lot easier. I took a green hooded sweatshirt and sewed on red felt triangles from the hood to the waist, and sewed orange felt half-ovals to the front to form the scales of the belly. For the tail I pieced together two long green felt rectangles, drew (and sewed along) two lines to form a long skinny triangle, trimmed the excess, and stuffed the tail. More red triangles finished the tail, and I sewed it to the back waist band of the sweatshirt.
(Not a great picture.)
(The chink in Smaug's armor.)

I sent the two off to their schools this morning with the costumes. Beadboy1 adored his, and wouldn't take it off. Beadboy2 was pestering me all week to wear it, but when he got to school decided he did not want to anymore. With a bit of coaxing from the teacher, he put on the breastplate and shield. And then this afternoon he ordered me to make him a Spiderman costume. Right. Maybe next year.

With the costumes done, I thought I could spend the morning stitching and crafting for myself. So of course, I got a call mid-morning from the school nurse that Beadboy1 was sick.* I did manage to whip up this little jack-o-lantern before I had to pick him up:
The idea of using sewing notions and game pieces to adorn a felt pumpkin came from some magazine I bought a couple of years ago. This is a sewing jack-o-lantern: the eyes are buttons, the nose is a bobbin, and the hanger is the end of a measuring tape. If I ever get to go into my craft room again, I will make another with dice, dominoes, and game tokens.

*When I went to go get Beadboy1, he was pale and dehydrated, but in a good mood. When I took him to the supermarket, he insisted on packing and repacking the cart. When I took him to Beadboy2's school, he was well enough to eat a lollipop. And by late this afternoon, the two of them were running amok throughout the house.