Every other year or so, my wife and I make Purim costumes for our children. My wife machine sews much better than I do, but I’m the intrepid (foolhardy?) hacker who isn’t afraid to cobble something together without a pattern. Here are some of my designs, modeled by my children. I’ve masked out their faces, to protect the innocent. You can click on any image to enlarge it.

One of my daughters once asked me to dress her up as lip gloss. Clueless guy that I was, I figured that was another name for lipstick. (She meant the stuff that’s long and thin, like a pencil.) I don’t know if it’s apparent from the photo, but the black “tube” has little shiny dots all over it, and the fabric I used for the tip of the “lipstick” has silver “gemstones” all over it.

That same year (was it something in the water?), my son decided to dress up as Mount Sinai. That was a much simpler costume to design, and the furry “grass” fabric proved to be a great investment – you’ll see more of it a few costumes down.

The next year, our oldest daughter wanted to be a bag of groceries. Time to buy batting! One or another of our kids wore this costume at least three different years.

A few years later, my wife picked up a two-piece vinyl rain outfit at the thrift shop. The younger children were all doing their own things, but the two of the older kids decided to join me as a fisherman and his catch. If the fish on the pole look familiar, it’s because I featured them on an earlier post. Helpful hint: Use a low-temp glue gun for styrofoam eyes, not high-temp.

One year, the kids decided that everyone should dress up as pencils. That meant seven matching costumes, in seven sizes! I used three different t-shirt patterns (adult, child, and toddler) as my starting points. There’s batting inside the ferrules, which helps the costumes hold their tubular shapes. The bottom of each costume is split in back, so that the wearer can comfortably walk and sit down. My wife ended up doing most of the actual sewing for the caps – she could finish them more nicely, and I didn’t have time.

Another year, the kids wanted new costumes, but I knew I wouldn’t have time for anything intricate. I told them I’d make each of them a long, sleeveless hoodie (a closed-up tube, essentially) out of whatever fabric they wanted, and that we’d work together to customize and accessorize. (Recognize the green fabric?) Almost all of the kids ended up as monsters, with different tails, horns, ears, wings, and glue-gunned appliqués. One decided to dress up as Rainbow Dash.