Sometimes Love Outweighs a Bargain

My 5 year-old decided in August that he wanted me to make him a Halloween costume.  I said "okay" - not sure where he got that idea from.  I was actually kind of thrilled - my mother used to make me my costumes all the time as a kid.  Although I'm not super crafty, I like a challenge.  Thankfully, he picked something relatively easy:  A Vampire. 

Now this will be his 6th Halloween.  I've never let him pick his costume - why?  Well I always have just scored really nice costumes on the clearance racks in November for the next year.  And honestly - little babies & kids really don't have a huge opinion and can be easily persuaded.  I'm evil.  I know.  In fact, November 1st, 2005 was the day I first learned that I would be popping out a little boy come April 2006.  What did the husband and I do after our ultrasound appointment that day?  We went to Old Navy.  There, I found the cutest little pumpkin costume on Clearance for only $3.  I bought it.  It was my "yey!  I'm having a boy" gift and it made me happy to have that vision of a little guy dressed up as a pumpkin.  Pregnant women get giddy over little things like that.  Before long, that peanut was wearing that $3 pumpkin costume:

Of course a couple days after Halloween 2006, I found a great little lion costume on clearance for the next year - and I remember it was a whopping $2.  And my 18 month old didn't put up a fight wearing it:

After this Halloween, I nabbed a police and fireman costume at Target in November - I think they were both about $2 or $3 - and it was just pure luck that I found them in the sizes I would need for the following year.  The 2 1/2 year old was given a choice between a fireman and policeman - he chose the fireman:

Along the way, I popped out another baby.  He didn't mind one bit inheriting the lion costume for his 2nd Halloween:

I was "out of luck" the November following this Halloween with finding costumes for the next year.  But luck was on my side come Halloween time.  I found a local lady who traded me this lion costume for a bigger monkey costume.  That solved my costume dilemma for one kid.  As luck would have it, a few days before Halloween, Old Navy had a $2 costume sale - and it was a 50% off "Stuff a Bag" sale so the cashier just added the costumes to the 50% total - making them $1 each.  I picked up a tiger, lion and chicken costume.  So we once again were covered for Halloween pretty frugally:

So then it was last year - because of my awesome finds at Old Navy with the amazing sale the previous year (I buy "big"), the kids were all set:

My older son loved the tiger costume so much, he reused it and the little guy loved the chicken costume. 
So in the past 5 years, I've spent maybe $18 (if that) on 8 costumes.  And they weren't all nasty or junkie costumes either.  I've passed them on to others who have used them.  They were all well loved by the kids, myself and my wallet.

But this year - I made the 5 year-old's costume.  It's not as "good" as any of these store bought ones and it cost me between $50 - $60 to make (fabric can be expensive!  Especially when you are making a huge, draping cape!).  My son is more than happy with it.  He thinks it's "so cool" that I made it and it's exactly what he wanted - he loved picking out the colors and patterns for the fabric choices.  He thought it was so neat that I was able to make clothes - kind of a "wow!  YOU can make CLOTHES!"  He's happy.  I'm happy.  And sometimes, happiness outweighs any bargain out there. 

And for the inquiring minds, here's a really bad photo of said homemade costume: