Now with 3 pounds of candy

This year's costume started out as one of our projects from Craftsy's Costume Box class. The colors were partly determined by a small box of beads, partly by what colors of tulle were available the day we went shopping. After seeing what we had, Caitlyn and I agreed that this was a Fire Fairy costume. I don't think we were thinking of Halloween at all when we got started, but then that was months ago.

Caitlyn, of course, wants everything that's in the Costume Box. So far, we've got this skirt and crown pair and her sword. There are more crowns, lots of wands, assorted wings, and a cloak as well. If we could have pulled off everything that went into Caitlyn's planned costume before Halloween, Caitlyn would have been thrilled. She also would have gone trick-or-treating not so much as a fairy but as a walking pile of fabric.

But as we got closer to Halloween, it became clear that all the chosen projects were beyond what we could do in the time we had. Caitlyn, quite reasonably, volunteered to skip the wand and the wings. Instead, she added in elements from her tiger costume from 3 years ago and became a Fire Cat.

The combination of fairy skirt and cat mask worked out much better than I thought it would. I didn't think she could wear her crown and her ears at the same time; shows you what I know. There were lots of compliments from the neighborhood on the costume, and I got to tell people that Caitlyn did most of the work herself. She tied all that tulle; all I did was cut things to the proper length and remind her to stay focused. So proud!

(Oh, and because I now have a kitchen scale, I weighed Caitlyn's trick-or-treating take for the night. I don't have anything to compare it with, but 3+ pounds of candy seems like a lot. We live in a very generous neighborhood.)