Upon being invited to a toddler’s first birthday slash Halloween party, I was forced to ponder the question: what does a pregnant woman wear for Halloween?
Thinking of a good maternity Halloween costume stumped me for a while. My 21-week baby bump isn’t quite at pumpkin level yet, and it was too cold to bare the belly for a body paint job. With toddlers around, gruesome and scary was out of the question. My DIY pregnancy costume also had to be half of a couple costume, and be inexpensive.
I really, really wanted to be Mike Wazowski from Monsters Inc., but we didn’t have time to do a proper Sully costume for Marlon… who absolutely refused to go as Boo. I hounded him for days (“It’s just a big pink t-shirt and pigtails! Pleeeeease?!”) but he wouldn’t budge. I also considered Pugsley and Wednesday from The Addams Family (my pregnant belly would’ve given it a whole other dimension of scary), but that was a bit too easy.
Finally, I had it. With two €5 t-shirts from the Albert Cuypmarkt, a few squares of felt in different colors, and some fabric glue, Marlon and I spent an evening DIY-ing our of his and hers Halloween costumes.
With a little something poking out of my winter coat, I got more than a few funny looks on the tram! Does this give you any hints about my Halloween costume?
If you guessed Angry Birds, you are absolutely correct!
I would love to have made a proper DIY post, but this was all a product of trial and error. I did some quick alternations on a large t-shirt to hug my body more (to show off the roundness of my bump!) and sketched the features freehand on some felt. The beak was the most difficult, since I wanted to make it in 3D. I ended up folding a kind of house shape and lining it with paper, a bigger one for the top and a smaller one for the bottom.
The felt features went on with fabric glue… but popped right off when I pulled the shirt on! (Somehow, I did not foresee that pregnancy curves would stretch out a cotton tee.) So I had to do some emergency “surgery” on myself as I was wearing the shirt. I ended up stitching the felt shapes to both my Heattech undershirt and my leggings… which made going to the bathroom quite a challenge!
With the extra stitching, the costume held up really well, even if sitting down made my bird face go from “angry” to “perplexed.”
Let’s not forget the husband! With his “sympathetic pregnancy” bump, Marlon had just the perfect amount of roundness to play the greedy pig to my Angry Bird.
I was surprised to discover that Halloween is not a big thing in the Netherlands, except for expats who insist on it. Do you celebrate Halloween? And did you dress up for it this year?
