What I Wore Wednesday: Homemade Robot Costume

Things have been so busy between work, launching Lassies Who Lunch and getting ready for Halloween that I totally spaced on What I Wore Wednesday last week---oops! I did get a post up about our amazing trip to France, including vlogs from the cutest little vlogger ever--Blondie Boy! I love Halloween and this was the first time in two years we were home in Scotland and not in the USA.

I'm not a fan of the Pinterest inspired competition to be the best Mom ever but personally I think that birthday cakes and Halloween costumes should always be home made. Nothing I make is ever going to look professional but I don't care. Unless there are circumstances beyond my control Blondie Boy is always getting a home made costume

This year he decided he wanted to be a dancing robot. So I bought some chrome effect spray paint, diamanté, buttons, sparkly leggings and flexible silver ducting and went to town. We already had some rain boots that a friend had given us as hand-me-downs so those got spray-painted, too. I finished it off with some white hairspray (couldn't find silver) and some loose silver make-up glitter and CR3 The Dancing Robot was born!

He also requested robot fingernails so who am I to say no when I own holographic silver polish already :) I think his costume came out really cute and he definitely stood out from the other kids. All of my costumes growing up were home made so I'm glad to carry on the tradition.

For work that day I had on cat ears and some drawn on whiskers (only my team dressed up at work and there were no full-on costumes) but I wanted something a bit more fun for trick or treating with Blondie Boy. Normally I try to match my costume to his but after getting him ready I only had ten minutes to sort myself. So I decided to take a risk and made myself a Dia de Los Muertos sugar skull type look.

The gems were a bit big and it wasn't as elaborate or colourful as I would have liked but not bad for ten minutes! It kind of makes me want to go to the tanning bed though as I definitely don't suit being super pale. We had a fun time visiting houses but it definitely is not the same as being home in Ohio.

I much prefer specified trick or treating times and knowing that if a light is on you know that it is okay to knock. Here I was hesitant to take BB up to a door unless they had a pumpkin out or I'd seen bigger kids go up already. That being said Halloween is much bigger than it was when I first moved here. Hopefully next year though we can be back in Ohio!

Did you dress up for Halloween?

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What I Wore Wednesday: USA Catch-up

I've been a bad, bad blogger. I managed to go a do What I Wore Wednesday for a full year (how did I miss that anniversary?) and only miss one week and then I went and missed two in a row. Sometimes life gets in the way of blogging and that was certainly the case since I had plenty of outfit photos.  Unfortunately my Grandma ended up in the hospital and while she is home and fine now it meant I missed WIWW and then last week my flight was delayed back from London and I was exhausted when I got home and just couldn't pull it all together. So apologies! 

We had a great time at home spending time with family and friends and eating far too much. It was a great trip home and I'm so glad we were able to spend as much time in Cincinnati as we did. Three weeks went so fast! So here is our trip in round-up photo style.


This was the first year Blondie Boy picked his own Halloween costume. We asked him fairly early on what he wanted to be and his answer never changed so he was a pirate! I'm totally that Mom who dresses up to take their kid trick or treating so I was a pirate too!

We had this stuffed Blue (from Rio) already in the house so I sewed it on to the vest Blondie Boy wore to my sister's wedding last year along with the tux shirt, some striped PJ pants, a bandanna and his requested moustache and his costume was good to go! The only thing we bought were his skull rainboots which I'm glad we did because it was a wet and cold night.

For my costume I borrowed a white button down from my dad, tied my skull scarf around my waist and raided my Dad's attic (which is full of costumes) for the hat and jacket.

We went trick or treating with my friend Allyson and her son Parker again this year but I somehow didn't manage to get any pictures of the two of them! Parker was such a big help holding Blondie Boy's hand going up and down steps and was just really sweet. BB was a major trooper and stayed out the whole two hours! Apparently the "thing" in my hometown now is golf carts and I thought it was rather telling all the older children being driven around on golf carts while my two year old hoofed it.

The very next day by best friend Sabrina and her son Landon flew out to visit us from Maryland. I'm so lucky to have someone willing to schlep to Cincinnati for me and the boys had so much fun together playing with cars, laughing about burps and we even had a trip to the Cincinnati Zoo. I love the Cincinnati Zoo and it's ruined all other zoos for me because it is SO amazingly awesome.

BB, Me, Sabrina & Landon

When Sabrina and Landon left NotBlondeHusband, my Dad, my step-sister's boyfriend Drew (who you might remember from the Light the Night post) and I went to watch the UC vs. Syracuse game. Both my Dad and I are UC alums but I think we were all really excited for the game; it was crazy how much the campus has changed in 9 years. The weather was frankly awful, but our seats were AMAZING. When it started sleeting we decided to give up but the Bearcats won so all was okay!

Nippert Stadium- Home of the Bearcats!

NBH, Drew and I

We went immediately from the game to meet my sister and her husband and drive up to Dayton for my Grandma's 90th birthday party. Unfortunately I have no photos as the photographer on the day had her camera stolen. How crappy is that? I do have a shot of one of the cute cupcake toppers my sister made though.

Bess rocking a Bikini back in the day

Next up was voting! I'm a huge political nerd so I loved being home for the election. This was the first time I ever voted in person in a presidential election; I've always voted absentee since I was living in DC for university or in Scotland. Since Ohio is a swing state we got upwards of ten phone calls a day at my Dad's house and I had a LOT of fun telling certain callers that I would under no circumstances be voting for their candidate.

Blondie Boy got super excited about voting but that might of just been because he got stickers and candy.

If you are wondering about the cookie every presidential election Busken Bakery in Cincinnati does a Cookie Poll and predicts who will win the election based on which candidate sells more cookies. It has never been wrong!

Since my Grandma ended up in the hospital we got to spend more time with my Mom (who lives in LA) then we thought we would which was nice although not the best circumstances. Luckily she got home quickly and got to spend some more time with Blondie Boy. She'll probably kill me for posting a photo of her without make up but I don't care I think it is super cute!

Blondie Boy and his GG Bess

My Mom, Sister and I

It was great spending so much time with my family and my Dad and my Step-Mom decided to have Thanksgiving early so we could be there! So we had a big family Fauxgiving the Saturday before we left. Blondie Boy had a great time playing with some of his (3rd?) cousins and we all indulged in too much amazing Thanksgiving food. I wish I could take credit for these photos but my sister stole my camera and took way better photos with it after a few minutes than I have all year.

My cousin Betsy and her gorgeous girls

My Grandma Jane and I

My cuzfriend (cousin+friend) Laura and I

I've just realized I have no photos of my Dad and I or my Dad and Blondie Boy. I'm honestly not sure how this happened! Sorry Dad! I went straight from turkey to go see a midnight showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show with my friends Allyson, Dana and Candi. We went to see it at the theatre I first saw it at over fifteen years ago! I took advantage of the post Halloween sales and got a french maid costume to be Magenta.

Dana the Transylvanian and Magenta Me

Allyson and Riff Raff

You can't tell but I wore my flowered Doc Marten boots that I've had since I was 15 as part of my costume. When Dana saw them she was surprised they still existed because that is how much I wore them back in the day. I was going to spray my hair red but I had a big presentation in London in two day and I didn't want to risk accidentally staining my hair.

 We had a great night and it just reminded me so much of how you know a good friend when you don't have to see each other all the time but you can just pick up where you left off when you do see each other.

We had such a great trip home and three weeks flew by really quickly. I flew straight from Cincinnati to London for work and then Blondie Boy got sick and then I got sick and I'm off to London again tomorrow but I'm sure when things calm down I will get properly homesick. It was so nice being with my family and seeing Blondie Boy play with his Papa and Mimi and Aunts and just having a great time. Plus I really do love my friends and I hate that I'm so far away from them. I hope they know how freaking amazing they are and how much I miss them.  Don't get me started on Cincinnati food or I'll be here all day. I know we can Skype and Facetime and GChat but it's not the same as being face to face y'know?

Do you live near your family or do you live near where you grew up? 

What I Wore Wednesday: Honey Boo Boo Halloween

One of my favourite things about being home this time of year is that I'm home for the Halloween party my Dad throws! I decided to stick with my reality theme from last year after I saw this dress on sale in Glasgow and knew who I had to be!

The scary thing to me is that this is a real dress; like from a store where you'd buy clothes to wear in your every day life not a costume place! It screams Toddler and Tiaras to me so I paired it with a crown, sash and of course "go go juice" to be Honey Boo Boo Chile. I've never actually seen her tv show (it's not on in the UK) but I thought it was a fun costume! NotBlondeHusband was the Dude from The Big Lebowski because he wanted someone with a beard and long hair and didn't feel like going all out. 

My friend Dana was a spider with balloons on her back for legs which was really cool! We've been friends for almost twenty years which is just crazy to me! She's got two super cute boys and hopefully we can find time to have a play date for them and Blondie Boy.

Allyson from Day in the Life was a pregnant nun which was funny because people couldn't figure out if she was really pregnant or not because they didn't know her. Plus when isn't it funny watching a pregnant nun eat alcoholic whipped cream? Note at this point in the night I thought it was "cute" to try and make Honey Boo Boo faces. I was wrong--it was not cute.

My friend Steve and I have been friends since we were 6. One Halloween many years ago he sacrificed me on the school playground to bring a mummy back to life. Don't worry it didn't work ;) Steve was Johnny from the Karate Kid. I've never seen the Karate Kid so I mostly enjoyed the costume because I had to staple him into it when the zipper broke towards the end of the night.

Did you go to a Halloween party this past weekend? What did you dress up as?

Easy Halloween Crafts for Toddlers

I LOVE Halloween. It is slowly getting more and more popular (or maybe just commercialized?) every year here in the UK which makes me happy. We are going to be in the USA for Halloween (yay!) but I still wanted to do some fun Halloween crafts with Blondie Boy before we left. It didn't make sense to carve a pumpkin since we'd be leaving and also since he's a toddler I don't exactly trust him with sharp knives. So we painted a Jack O Lantern.

The hardest part was my portion which was taping on the Jack O Lantern's face. I just took some masking tape, overlapped strips and made giant squares to then cut out the shapes I wanted. The eyes and nose were easy but the mouth was a little bit more fiddly.

Then I just let Blondie Boy go to town with some poster paints and he painted all over the pumpkin. Once it was dry I peeled off the tape to reveal the "carved" Jack O Lantern face. 

Blondie Boy is a boy after his Mom's heart and had me add some glitter to the eyes, nose and mouth. It actually kind of mimics the flicker of a candle so I think it turned out pretty cool.

He is so proud of it and always talks about "his pumpkin" when we pull in the driveway.

Since the pumpkin went so well we decided to make some hand Spiders that I saw on Kismet's Fate's Instagram. Again super easy but possibly messy--what craft involving paint isn't messy with a toddler? 

Paint one of your toddler's hands and have them make handprints on a bit of card stock or poster board. Then paint their other hand and make another handprint next to it making sure the thumbs over lap.

Let the hand prints dry and then cut around the hand spiders. It is quite curvy so depending on how good your child is with scissors they could do this themselves or you can do it. 

Then glue on googly eyes. I found it was a lot easier for Blondie Boy to glue on the larger eyes so we used them so he could do it himself.

We stuck them all over Blondie Boy's bedroom door to make it extra spooky and he took one to his Grandma's house for her bulletin board. Have you being doing any Halloween crafts?

What I Wore Wednesday

This week I'm linking up my Halloween costume but you can link whatever you like! I was a Rock of Love girl for Halloween, but 90% inspired by Ashley from Rock of Love Bus. I found out via Twitter that she actually owns the shirt I wore so I feel it was a pretty authentic costume :)

Sparkly Pink Bow Barrette- Target

Nude Lipstick- Revlon 405 Pearl 

Fake Lashes- Walmart

Black Hoop Earrings- Target

Pink Shiny Skull Tee- Target

Tutu- My Dad's Attic

Hello Kitty Lip Gloss Ring-Old Navy

Tattoos- Walmart

Black Leggings- My Step-Sister's

Pink Faux Uggs- Step Sister again via Second Hand Store

  

Fruity Freaks and Vegetable Monsters

The fab people at Innocent, who's smoothies are yumtastic by the way, sent us over a fruity freak and vegetable monster making kit so Blondie Boy could enter a creation in  their new Halloween competition.

Blondie Boy is a bit young for carving but he love art projects so we broke out some permanent markers and let him make his very own monster!

An abstract masterpiece right? He had so much fun making it and in case you were wondering his monster is made up, according to him, of stars, hearts, ovals and eyes. You can create your own fruity freak or vegetable monster, too!

Here are the instructions for the competition:

1) Make your fruity freak or vegetable monster from the spookiest looking fruit or veg you can find

2) Give it a name and use your innocent magnets to spell it out (how about 'Terry Able' or 'Aaaaaaaaaalan')

3) Take a picture of your spooky creation and post it in our scary Halloween gallery www.innocentdrinks.co.uk/fruityfreaks and email myfruitandvegmonster@innocentdrinks.co.uk with your flickr name and a postal address.

4) The first 1,000 entries win a set of limited edition glow-in-the-dark Halloween 0-9 number magnets (the perfect addition to our alphabet set)

5) When you're done with your monster why not use any leftover veg to make a soup or whizz any fruit up into a smoothie?

We were sent a box with fruit and veg to take part in this challenge but all opinions are our own!

GOSH Nail Glitter Giveaway!

It's been a while since I've had a giveaway and with Halloween coming up this one couldn't be better timed! GOSH cosmetics have come out with Nail Glitter which isn't only on trend (did you see Kelly's Rowland's glitter nails on X-Factor?) but also is perfect for fancy dress/Halloween costumes at the end of this month.

Click to Enlarge

I gave myself one glittery toe last night and it was really easy and I love how the glitter is matte but sparkly at the same time. I have two pots for two winners of GOSH Nail Glitter. To enter follow the rules as below! Competition closes October 14th.

Transatlantic Blonde was provided GOSH Nail Glitter for the purpose of review and giveaway but all opinions are our own.

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween!

Apologies for the lack of blogging but between being sick, trying to finish hand-sewing Blondie Boy's costume and going down to Troon I just needed to take a wee break!

I *love* Halloween and as all of my Halloween costumes growing up were hand-made by my Dad it was really important to me to make Blondie Boy's costume myself. Anyone who knows me will know that I do not sew or craft or do anything artsy, so it took some effort but was well worth it!

He loved passing out candy to the few trick or treaters that we had and looking at the jack o' lanterns and decorations we had up. Hopefully next year he will get to go trick or treating for the first time and fingers crossed he'll get to do it in Cincinnati!

Pumpkintastic

We finally went to the grocery tonight and besides stocking up on Phase 1 foods, we got a pumpkin. Yes, Halloween was yesterday but better a day late than never. Also I freaking love homemade pumpkin seeds; my Mom always made these at Halloween and store bought just aren't the same.

I washed, gutted and scrubbed the pumpkin and NBH carved it. We decided not to do the bog standard jack o'lantern and almost did the Obama change logo, but instead went for a skull. I think it turned out pretty well!

Happy Halloween

When my sister Alie and I were growing up our favorite hairdo was "Dorothy braids." Sure they were just 2 french braids, but to us it meant we were just like Dorothy. Perhaps that's why Alison decided to send Emma this costume for Halloween. NBH is sick so I don't think I will be dressing up tonight, but at least someone in our house got to celebrate!