Optimus Prime and BumbleBee

As promised, here are pictures of my boys Halloween costumes. And yes, BumbleBee is inside of that yellow car. They wanted to be Transformers this year and my original thought was that will be easy. I just have to dress them in painted cardboard boxes. Ha! If that were only the case.

It was shortly after they decided they wanted to be Transformers that I found out my nephew wanted to be a Transformer too. Well, come to find out my brother-in-law had plans to make his son's costume transform. And since our boys are all really close, and most likely would be trick-or-treating together, I figured I had to step my game up and make my boys costumes transform too. Unfortunately, when I had that bright idea I failed to take into consideration, the limited time I have to do things these days with my new full time job and all.

That is how I ended up spending my entire Fall Break designing and creating these two cardboard vehicles. That's right folks, cardboard! Now I have to admit, I have had some past experience with making vehicles out of cardboard. When Optimus Prime was almost two, he wanted to be a truck. I ended up using a couple of banker boxes, foil, ribbon and some construction paper to turn him into a yellow pick up truck. He absolutely loved it and was a big hit on Halloween. He also played with it for a long time after. I don't think I got rid of it until two years later when it was on it's last leg and I wanted to use some of the parts for another cardboard truck.

This time, BumbleBee wanted to be a Firetruck. With the Firetruck, I even added blinking lights on top and as headlights. It was pretty cool, if I do admit it myself. Of course that was the year BumbleBee refused to participate in Halloween, after I did all that work, he never even wore it. Although our good friend used it last year, when he decided to be a Firefighter. And now that BumbleBee has had so much fun transforming this year, he has also been fascinated with the Firetruck. He even wore it today.

Luckily this year, there was no problem with either one of the kids wanting to wear their costumes. It's been more of an issue keeping them out of the costumes. They love them and I'm glad they do. I worked really hard on them and stressed myself to the point of exhaustion trying to get them done in time for the Costume Parade at my oldest son's school. I did get them done just in time, but ran out of time to make the masks I had planned. I ended up searching for some basic masks, to make them at least feel like they were Transformers. Only my oldest told me that Optimus Prime's face didn't look like his mask. I told him, "robots are metal and that mask makes you look like you're made of metal. You don't have to wear if you don't want to." And that was that. Notice in the pictures he's wearing it?

I felt so bad, we were 20 minutes late to the Costume Parade on Wednesday. I made the mistake of picking up BumbleBee from school before heading to the Parade, thinking that he would enjoy seeing it and participating in it too. We were so late though thanks to unforeseen circumstances. By the time we arrive, Optimus Prime's class had already gone on stage and showed off their costumes, but he wasn't able to show off his, because I had the costume with me, thinking it was too big and bulky for him to deal with on the bus ride to school. Thankfully he goes to a small school where everyone knows each other and the principal let him go on stage with all of the teachers to show off his costume. That was when he tried to transform in front of everyone and the costume started to bust apart. I'd already lost one exhaust pipe trying to get it out of the car in a hurry. And BumbleBee had lost a wheel running into the school. Then when Optimus Prime tried to transform on stage, he busted through his front wheels and one set of his rear wheels.  Oddly enough, it didn't seem to phase him. It probably bothered me more than anything, since I was looking at heading home and fixing everything so it would be ready for trick-or treating that night. Both kids still had a great time at the Costume Parade and Monster Dance. I did too.

 Alas, trick-or treating was a success. Optimus Prime and BumbleBee were both repaired just in time and both kids had a great time showing off their costumes to various neighbors and friends, trick-or-treating with their best friends and their cousin. And I've now been a costume designer seven years and counting. Even though it's harder with a full time job, I'm still going to continue creating Halloween costumes. It's too much fun not to.