DIY Monster’s Inc Costumes

During October, one of my biggest decisions is “what am I going to be this Halloween?” I love homemade costumes because I find it so interesting to see how people’s creative juices start flowing.

Last year, MG and I made minion hats for our costume.

Minions

This year we’re going to be… Can you guess from the items below?!?!

photo 2

Do these colors remind you of any Pixar movies? Perhaps Monster’s Inc. MG will be Mike Wazowski, and I will be his companion, Sulley.

Mike & Sulley

This year, my costume will be a double-duty outfit. If you’ve been following along, then you know what these costumes were used for (my Disney half marathon!).

IMG_2336

In this post, I’m going to show you how I created these looks.

First let’s start out with Mike Wazowski. What you’ll need is a bright green shirt and 3 different colors of fabric (white, black, and dark green). Cut out a circular eyeball on the white fabric, a smaller dark green circle for the cornea, a smaller circle for the pupil, and then a small white circle to use as the reflection of the eyeball.

Find circular items around the house as your guides – I used a variety of bowls.

DSC09565

Iron the eyeball flat:

DSC09567

And simply sew each piece onto the t-shirt. I kept the sewing simple, so the edges are raw and a bit frayed (I chose this since MG will only be wearing the shirt twice). If you want the costume to last longer, definitely sew with a zig-zag hem. Another option is to use Fray Check by dotting along the edges and letting the liquid dry (it works like clear nail polish).

DSC09569

DSC00891

Now for the Sulley costume! I wanted to keep it girly and cute still (ideally, I don’t want to look like a huge fluffy monster). What I came up with is a tutu with a cute set of horns.

If you’re looking to make a tutu – this is the perfect tutorial for you!

tutu-cover

What you’ll need for the tutu is: 10 feet of tulle, an elastic band (or ribbon), scissors.

Cut the tulle into strips of 4-5 inches. Measure our your elastic band/ribbon around your waist, and tie the tutu around the elastic band or ribbon (tutorial on how to tie below). Keep going around the band/ribbon until you’re out of tulle.

DSC09579

DSC09576

Tying the tulle:

tying-tutu

Keep the band around your waist to tie the tulle on easily.

DSC09581

For the Sulley costume, I needed to add spots of purple. I purchased purple tulle pom poms and simply hand-sewed them onto the tutu.

DSC09600

DSC00893

Now for the horns. I purchased a blue headband and cut out horns from felt. I stuffed the felt with some extra fabric and sewed the horns together and slipped them through the headband.

DSC09604

DSC09608

Then I made some pom poms from yarn and glued them onto the headband (pom pom tutorial here).

DSC09613

DSC09623

And that’s it! A cute Sulley costume to match an adorable Mike Wazowski! Creating costumes is so much better than purchasing. It’s unique and a great way to show off your creative skills.

What will you be this year for Halloween? Will you be making your costume?

Happy Halloweek!
Jay

Disneyland California Adventures

It’s been a week and a half since I went to Disneyland during Labor Day weekend. And I’m still having Disney withdrawals! After our marathon, we were too sore to go to the park. MG and I ended up going the day after (in our half marathon shirts)!

Matching
^^^ Mg hasn’t achieved pro-status on selfies!

Is it cool to like Disney at the age of 26? I think so! The magic never goes away. That warm, fuzzy feeling after you watch Disney movies is the same warm, fuzzy feelings you get as you walk through the theme park. Going as a child is great. There’s so much to see and a few fun rides. Going as an adult is a whole different story. The roller coasters are fun, but what’s even better is that you’re willing to spend money on superfluous foods and toys (I always buy lunch and snack on a turkey leg, soda, and candied apple). More importantly though, you really appreciate the little details that Disney puts into the parks as an adult. For one thing, when you’re in line at the Little Mermaid ride, there are seashells in the pavement. But these details at Disneyland is NOTHING compared to Disney World. If you haven’t been to Orlando for the parks, do yourself a favor and go! It will not disappoint. I’m not over-hyping it, because you really can’t describe the fun in words; descriptions do not do it justice.

Mickey

Disney

Fortunately for us, the lines weren’t too long on the Monday that we went. The longest we waited was 90 minutes for Radiator Springs Racers. In the grand scheme of things, that’s not bad at all!

By far the highlight of the day was walking through Carsland. The designers did such a great job bringing Radiator Springs to life.

Radiator Springs Racers

Willy's Butte
^^^ Willy’s Butte Rock

Route 66

Cozy cone motel
Cozy Cone Motel – everything is cones!!!

Mater

Switch
Watching Lightening McQueen switch with Mater. Then the line got suppperrr long!

Line

The second best part of the day would have to be the Pixar parade. Look at how cute all the characters were. Can you think of some of the movies they are missing?

Sulley

Crush

Mr. Incredible

Bug's Life

Buzz

Toy Story
^^^ Haha someone is the butt!!!

Cars

Third best thing – my turkey leg. Reminds me of home, of the days my dad would come home with turkey legs from work. And it’s delicious!

Turkey

We ended up leaving the park at 6:30pm to catch our flight at 8:45pm. When we gas-ed our rental up and dropped it off, we noticed that our flight was delayed for an hour. We asked an employee if we could get onto an earlier flight, and he told us “run, it leaves in 10 minutes.” We went through security in a hurry, didn’t get a chance to clean off or wipe my sweat down from the day, and boarded our flight at 7:30pm. In an hour we were able to leave the park and get on a flight. It’s never a calm moment with me and airports. Travel with me to find out!

Have you been to Disneyland or Disney World? How did you like it? What is your fondest memory of the park?
Jay

Disneyland Half Marathon

This past weekend was by far one of the most memorable things I’ve done in my life. Coming back to a normal, regular day is so difficult when you’ve had an epic weekend.

If you’ve been following along, you’d know that I ran a half marathon. I ran a half marathon – that’s 13.1 miles!!! When I first started training, I could barely run a block. I was literally wheezing because my lungs would burn and my legs would ache. Not even kidding. But I did it. I ran a half!

Okay, more like walk/run. Still… I’m pretty proud! MG and I signed up for the Disneyland half marathon, inspired by my sister and her boyfriend who ran the half at Disney World in January. We trained during the month of August (yup, in one month). We ran 5 miles the first week of August and decided that if we could run 10 miles by the third week, we’d be ready. And we were right!

Remember my last post (DIY costume materials)? Were you able to guess what our costumes would be? It’s from Monsters, Inc. Ming-Gih was Mike Wazowski and I was his counter-part, Sulley. We looked like this when running:

Sulley and Mike

It was a blast! We ran with our friend, Sang (he did the Dumbo Double Dare which means the 10k and half marathon). We got up at 3am to get ready because the race started at 5:30am. To make things fun, we took many pictures, with as many characters as we could. I’m a slow runner, but Sang stayed by my side and encouraged me the whole time (Thanks!). With all the water stops, character pictures, and my slow jog, we were close to where racers are cut off (you must keep a 16 minute per mile pace). If you past that time limit, you get picked up and cannot finish the race. Once we saw where the cut-off was, we would run from that point!

Hotel
^^^ Ready and not sweaty… yet. We’re all Pixar characters – Russell, Mike, and Sulley ^^^

IMG_2280
What we look like at 5am – ready to run!

IMG_2283
Lots and lots of people in our corral – we were the last to go ^^^

IMG_2336

IMG_2342
About to run through the park

IMG_2338

IMG_2345

IMG_2344

IMG_2337

IMG_2353

IMG_2356

10659210_10101605587277275_364068624577278166_n

IMG_2341
So cute!!!

IMG_2286
^^^ More than halfway!!!

IMG_2347
We even ran through the stadium

IMG_2348

IMG_2350
1 more mile to go!

And then we did it!!! The finish line!!!

IMG_2352

IMG_2298

IMG_2309

IMG_2307

IMG_2313

IMG_2317
^^^ This guy is a beast! He ran the Goofy Challenge (5k, 10k, half, and full marathon in January at Disney World). And now he did the Dumbo Double Dare (10k and half). Look at all 10 of his medals – including the Coast to Coast where you must run everything within the year. Amazing!!!

We finished the half but with a small injury. MG hurt his knee by mile 8 and couldn’t run the rest of the way. With a bit of bio-freeze lathered on, he could power walk the rest of the way. But YAY! We finished!

IMG_2321

IMG_2324
My knee was a little sore but more importantly, I was starving at this point! Sang knows me well… He motivated me by telling me that there were snacks at the finish line!

Teheh I even did my nails for the race.

Nails

If you’re not a runner (I promise you, I am not), sign up for the Disney run. Characters cheering you on. Cheer squads encouraging you. Bands playing to pump you up… It doesn’t get any more fun than this! The Disney run will be a great motivator to work out and train. Plus, you get this shiny thing!

IMG_2334

Epic weekend is an understatement. Words can even begin to describe the memories I have from this past trip. Because of MG’s bum knee, we didn’t get to go to Disneyland after the race. But we went the next day! That’s a different post for different day!

Stay tuned…
Jay