Happy Halloween: an Octopus Trunk-or-Treat

I am so excited about Halloween this year! I have been mostly on top of the kids and our costumes. Granted we had a minor set back with the hubby's mask, they have been coming along rather nicely! I have to say that the Costume Planning Printables made that so much easier this year! I'm still working on finalizing costumes, and finishing up my own, but took a break to work on our awesome Trunk or Treat decorations. 

I joined the local MOPS group earlier this year and we participated in the sponsoring church's Trunk or Treat event this last Saturday. It was so much fun! I forgot how much fun it is to pass out candy to trick or treat-ers! I have not lived in an area where we got trick or treat-ers in over 7 years! Kind of sad, but then we go to the fall festival with the hubby's parents church and that is super fun anyway! 

This year I'm glad that I got to participate in the Trunk-or-Treat! The theme we decided upon was under the sea/pirate themed with an octopus draping over the hatch, a pirate chest and under the sea creatures. We were supposed to have bubbles, but the bubble solution and the machine were none too happy to work together.

The girls did a great job on the sea net and Styrofoam ice cooler treasure chest (full of candy!)...

I sewed up the octopus using a couple of cheap drapes from Walmart (the yardage equivalence was about 4.66 yards). Seam ripping the hems is so much fun, ha! Just gotta get as much fabric use out of it that I can right? Even though I didn't use all of it...

 I drafted the tentacle pattern using old computer paper being almost a foot wide at the top and narrowing down over 5 feet to a couple inches wide at the bottom. I cut out sixteen to make the eight tentacles.

Brandon drafted the head side panel the foam parts of this octopus puppet for inspiration.  I used a strip roughly about the same width of the legs expanding at the ends.

The eyes are felt and stuffed with poly-fil and the whole octopus is stuffed with plastic grocery bags! I would not have gotten it finished without the wonderful ladies from our groups coming and helping stuff the octopus! (not to mention the reason to make it!) 

This was a fun project!

And now, the kids have something super fun and squishy to play with (or snuggle). :)

Happy Halloween!!