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If you’re lucky a parent gets two, maybe three, years of being able to pick out your child’s Halloween costume until they are ready to impose their own opinions of the costume selecting process. You took care of them when they were squishy and small and waking you up at all hours, so you’ve earned a year or two of dressing them in whatever ridiculous get up you prefer. I wavered a few times on what I was going to do with Elias for Halloween, but since Isobel didn’t settle on a final costume choice until the eleventh hour as we knew she would, I needed to go with something simple. I knew I could whip up one elaborate costume out of nothing, but I wasn’t sure I could whip up two.
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Pikachu was a dead easy costume to piece together, it was comfortable for Elias to wear, kept him warm, and involved buying clothing pieces that he could wear again.
The hat is the most recognizable, and most important part of this costume. I purchased it from Logan’s Bowtie Boutique after and extensive search on Etsy. Not only was this hat available in many sizes (the majority I found were either for newborns or order kids, so, way to big or way too small), it was handmade to order and had the cutest face. The last part might not seem like a big deal, but run a search for “Pikachu hat” through the ol’ Etsy and you are going to find some Pikachu that can only be described as “buttaface.” Not only that, but the shop owner, Staci, was super nice and rushed the hat to me as I ordered pretty close to the Halloween deadline. Not every Etsy seller responds to their messages quickly or is so helpful.
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The hat is a little large but it got the job done and served double duty: Isobel can wear it, too. Which, if you know how important Pikachu is to hear, is a big fucking deal. The sharing of the Pika hat has prevented the inevitable Sibling Wars for at least another couple of years. Or one year. Or a week.
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The only part I had to put together myself was the tail. I think I spent $.70 on felt; everything else I already had on hand. (Having a Mom who’s a thrifter and a craft supply hoarder always comes in handy around Halloween.) I used one of Isobel’s well-loved Pikas as my muse and cut out a lightning zig zag of a tail. I then flipped the sides with pencil marks to the inside and used a glue gun to glue sections of the tail together. I went with a glue gun instead of the sewing machine for a couple of reasons: 1. I already had the glue gun hot and ready as I was making Isobel’s Wasp costume at the same time, and 2. mostly I used the glue gun because I knew if I piled on the glue it would have a nice stiff and rigid edge which would keep the tail from flopping over and looking like it had some electric-erectile dysfunction. I used a bag of stuffing I bought at a thrift store for a quarter to stuff the tail to give it life and glued the hell out of the edges.
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You’ll notice that a Pikachu’s tail is brown at the base. No problem. I traced the appropriate width and length using the partially-finished tail as a guide, cut it out and glued it on. That’s the tail done!
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The tail came out perfectly, and I secured it to his yellow onesie with two safety pins.
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Speaking of the oneise, I bought one on Etsy because finding plain yellow onesies is not easy. Although I purchased it just for the costume he can obviously wear it over and over by itself, so I feel it wasn’t a wasted purchase after November 1st. Same with the hat–he doesn’t need to be dressed as Pikachu to wear the Pika hat. I was originally going to use some of the extra felt fabric to make brown stripes on the onesie’s back–like Pikachu’s–but I ran out of time since Isobel’s costume was so elaborate. I don’t regret it, though, because it makes the onesie more wearable and probably wouldn’t have been as noticeable with the Pika tail in the way.
The legwarmers, as some of you may remember, were purchased as part of Isobel’s Busy Bee costume. She used them ever since then and now it’s Elias’ turn. They ended up matching the hat perfectly. I paired the legwarmers with socks and he was kept quite warm.
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We found him, guys. We found a real Pikachu.
