I'm a little Dutch girl dressed in blue...

Since several people mentioned these Dutch girl costumes from a previous post, I thought Blue Monday would be a good day to post about them.

(My little Dutch Girls at the Pumpkin Patch - circa 1990)

These are my favorite costumes from Halloweens past, and they were pretty inexpensive and simple to make (a necessity for this bumbling sewer)...

They almost became sailor girl outfits after Mom & Dad bought sailor caps for the girls during a trip to Florida. (Here are the girls during an early skirt fitting.)

But in the end, the Little Dutch Girls won out (seen here with Nana & Grampa before I'd had a chance to stencil windmills onto their aprons, which were actually clearance priced cafe curtains with ribbons through the rod pocket to tie them around their waists).

That's better, now they're stenciled... And the skirts were easy enough to make with clearance calico from Wal Mart, simple sewed in elastic waistbands, and iron-on hems. Making the hats was the tricky part. I sewed heavy duty florist wire into the side flaps so I could curl up the ends.

The girls already had cable knit tights and cardigans (after all, this is New England!)... I remember they were sooo excited to be sitting on top of a real live pony!

This photo was taken at a local apple orchard's Halloween Fair. That day, several people asked if we were of Dutch heritage, which we're not. But I have such warm childhood memories of my mom reading us fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen and of hearing stories like Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates or the Little Dutch Boy, that it just seemed like a great choice for costumes!

These are some of our favorite Hans Christian Andersen books... (I know, I have a serious problem/love affair with beautifully illustrated children's books!!!)

Don't forget to stop by Smiling Sally's to see all the other Blue Monday posts!!

I'm a little Dutch girl dressed in blue,

Here are the things I like to do...

Salute the Captain, bow to the queen,

Turn my back to the submarine!

Donna (who remembers jumping rope to that!)

A (Costumed) Trip Down Memory Lane...

Since it's almost Halloween, I thought I'd share some of the costumes my girls once wore (they're now 19 and 22, but looking at these photos makes it seem like yesterday!)... I know many of you still have little ones, and some of these costume ideas are pretty inexpensive to put together!


(pirates - circa 1993)

I think these two pirates are way cuter than Captain Jack Sparrow, and talk about inexpensive costumes! And all I had to buy were the two eye patches. (The girls already had the black pants and we were able to raid everything else from the days when I worked out side the home … okay, stop laughing… yes, I did actually wear both of those blouses - and the scarves - and the necklaces… okay, you can laugh, I sure am!!)


(witch & cat – circa 1992)

That year, Amanda was a witch (in a very makeshift Halloween dress I made), and Court was her little black cat… The school they went to used to have the cutest Halloween parade, which is where this was taken…


(my little black cats – circa 1988 and 1992)

Amanda, the shy kitty, first had the ears & tail in ’88; then they were passed on to Court, the wild kitty, who used them in ‘92, adding a Halloween cape and some crazy Halloween socks!

(Indian maidens – circa 1991)

The idea for this costume came about when their dad returned from a trip to Colorado with headdresses for the girls… I got some cheap “faux suede” material at Wal Mart and made the simplest of dresses for them. We made "craft kit" bead necklaces and finished up the costumes with belts and moccasins (they both love moccasins to this day – maybe it started back then?)

(Nana & Grampa with girls - circa 1991)

Now here’s where I’m really going to come clean (or should I say dirty? Just look at that kitchen in the background!)… Mom & Dad had just returned from visiting relatives in Florida and they got the girls tom-toms for their costumes... Clearly this photo was never intended for a blog (did blogs even exist back then?) with that mess on the counters (that's what the kitchen looked like years before I took white paint to it!)... Mess or no mess, I love this photo of the girls with mom and dad…

I have one more set of costumes to share, but I’ll do that in another post as I’ve already rambled on too long...

Wishing you and yours the happiest of October memories...

Donna

October means Halloween...

...and to me, that means:

And now that you've seen what Halloween means to me, click here to see what it means to all the other Halloween Party bloggers! Wishing you all a spook-tacular HALLOWEEN!!!

Donna