Super Mario and Luigi Costumes How-Tos

This, save for the uber complicated hats, would be our easiest homemade costumes to date!  I thank the stars for that.  Originally, Miro wanted to be Ganondorf and Kenji wanted to be Thomas the Tank Engine.  And you know us... we don't buy costumes.  We have a rather masochistic streak.  :P

To get the look of these super gaming icons, most items you can score just about anywhere.

1.  If you can find a worker's jeans jumper, that's half the problem solved.  But my husband loves challenging himself so the jumpers had to be made from scratch.  The big yellow buttons added the cartoonish feel to the pieces.

2.  Red and green long-sleeved shirts.  You can get this from any clothing store.  Ours, we got from the boys' stash of old Filipiniana costumes. :)

3.  Gloves, of course.  These, we had to buy.

4.  Mario and Luigi wore thick worker boots in the game.  Those would be hell painful when the kids do their rounds at Trick or Treat.  So we ditched going by the book here and opted for comfy shoes.  Rule of costuming kids --ok, it's nice to look at, but can your child move in it?

5.  Mustaches --the handiwork of my eyeliner set and crafty hand.

6.  Ah, the hats.  These came in 2 versions.  Yesterday's hats' letter details came out wrong because we were rushing for a Halloween event.  But I did book us for 2 parties this year, and the real big one was the Nickelodeon Planet Scream party.  So we had time to revise when we got home.  Because these hats HAD to look like the REAL thing --Miro demands it!

The challenging part about the hats was the shape.  It was difficult to get the cartoonish bumps that they had on the video game.  Finally, we settled for a page boy hat shape and just added some folds to create bumps on the sides.  Miro gave the finished products a once-over.  Then after a few beats, "Ok, ok... not bad." --Really!

7.  Bring a lot of attitude!  The secret to making a costume work for you is to work with the costume.  My boys were in character the whole time.  In fact, a couple at the Nickelodeon Planet Scream event actually asked Mario and Luigi to pose with their kids for a posterity shot.  Oooh!  Just like celebritiiiiees...  Haha!

Miro and Kenji felt super cool about that.  Authenticity achieved!  Whew!
Have fun making yours!