Another Halloween has come upon us.
Yes, here it is.
And as always I find myself plagued by that all important question faced by many parents whose children don't have any input on it: What Shall The Children Be For Halloween.

It's not that my girls don't care; I wouldn't say that. It's more that (or so it seems) they spend a great deal of their daily life pretending to be a plethora of things: cats, mice, Charlie & Lola, skunks, raccoons, the aliens from Toy Story, chipmunks, and rats. I think that by the time October rolls around, they are just tuckered out of their daily adventure routine and not able to come up with a solid idea on their own.

Enter mom.

Here I come, every year, to save the day and create a costume that will be joyful and, above all...cheap.

I really need things to be cheap. Really. Spending a lot is not an option or something I'm remotely willing to do. So I think. And think. And think.

We've had our duds, let me tell you, but we've had some good ones too. This year the girls told me they wanted something that involved a Tu-Tu. And that gem was the extent of their artistic direction. Sigh.  A trip to Hobby Lobby revealed a well timed sale on tulle in a multitude of Halloweenish colors. I chose Black, Orange, Purple, and White. I looped and stitched a piece of wide elastic to create a waistband. I cut all the tulle into 5 inch wide strips, which is a task I'll be joyfully happy to never do again considering I started out with over 7 yards of tulle for both skirts. After cutting my strips, I tied them all on to the waistband, one at a time. Because these strips were longer, the overall effect is a slightly craggly, witchy look.

Aha! Witchy. My subconscious mind sparked by that uniformed look.

I then dug out our fabulous black and white striped leggings, which I love and think are far too difficult to buy in the store given how gosh darn adorable they look under any number of splendiforous things. Cute.  We added to that orange sparkly pumpkin shirts and a feathery orange boa.

We were close, but not quite there yet.

I then remembered the forever-old foam witch's hats I had bought several years ago for a Halloween themed birthday party, and which had been gathering dust ever since in our basement. After finding them and knocking any lingering residents of the arachnid sort, (shudder) I determined we were almost exactly right.

But what these little witches needed most was a name. A cute name. Something fun.

The Witchy-Poos.

Perfect.

A quick print-shop project and hot glue session later and my little witches were labeled and ready to head out the door.

Maybe not my brightest costume idea; but given that it's a complete hodge podge that started out with the vague idea that the costume should somehow have a Tu-Tu in it, I think it pulled together rather well.

The Witchy-Poos