How to Craft a Halloween Costume for your Baby .

Are you thinking about making your baby his or her Halloween costume?  Well, you're in the right spot.  I have a 12 step plan to quickly craft a costume for your baby no one will believe you made!

Before I get to it, some background.  Crafting Halloween costumes using items found at Target is sort of my jam.  In college one year, my roommates and I were the characters from the Wizard of Oz .  I was the Tin Man.  Yes, that's duck tape wrapped around me.

Before we were engaged, I whipped up these for my husband and I.  We confidently walked down the streets of Chicago clad in little more than tights and black underwear and he was only sorry about the whole thing when I showed him the Save the Date I crafted for our wedding.  There were many calls and texts from afar.

With my crafty Halloween tendency, I want to do my baby right!  I suggested a family Incredibles Halloween to which my husband replied, "I think those costumes were lost in the move," to which I replied, "no they weren't.  I MADE SURE we brought those with us," to which he replied, "I need at least a year's notice to get back in those tights."  So the Incredible Family won't happen until 2013.  Onto plan B and the 12 step program.

Step 1:  Accept that wrapping your baby in duct tape or hot gluing pipe cleaners to his onesie is not up to safety code.  Take your search for Halloween costume parts and pieces from Target to a fabric store.

Step 2.  Go to your fabric store of choice and flip through the pattern books.  Bring your baby so he or she can sign off on all the decisions being made and kick you while you flip through the pattern books.

Step 3:  Get completely overwhelmed by pattern books and fancy looking costumes they think YOU can make.  Who the hell are these people?

Step 4:  Leave fabric store.

Step 5:  Once home, google "no-sew baby Halloween costumes."

Step 6:  Go on a pinning bonanza with the results of the aforementioned google search.

Step 7:  Click through to the websites with all the easy-peasy no-sew Halloween costumes you've pinned on every available corner of your virtual board.

Step 8:  Become disenchanted with pinning when you realize each pin leads you to a website selling the so-called no-sew Halloween costumes.

Step 9:  Chuckle through your disappointment at the marketing genius in action here.  If you buy it,  it really is the ultimate no-sew costume.

Step 10:  On a random Target run during which you should be stocking up on household staples like Reduced Fat White Cheddar Cheez-Its and Twizzlers, spot cute dinosaur costume near the Halloween candy aisle which you should not be near in the first place.

Step 11: Succumb.  Place costume in cart.

Now ladies, this is where the crafting comes in.  

Step 12:  CRAFT YOUR STORY.

This is just as challenging as making the costume so plan it like you were going to plan that cute little monster get-up.

Make your talking points crisp and clear.  Incorporate enough detail to make it believable but not so much that it brings on questions.  Share a mistake in a conspiratorial manner and  for the love of God, stop talking early on.  If you babble, the pointed questions about your fabric draping technique will eventually be answered with a hysterical, "It's from Target, ok!?!"

I am happy to provide free story consults.  Mine is as follows:  "My mom was in town and she helped with the harder parts.   I had to velcro it together in a few places, but I just hid it under the fur!  Don't tell anyone that!"

Congratulations.  You have crafted your baby's Halloween costume and no one will really believe you did it.

Yes, I crafted that!