This year I am not feeling nearly as crazed as usual, but it certainly helps that my boys chose easy costumes. I normally make their costumes and I take pride that they still wear most of their past costumes to play dress up. However, this year with working two jobs and being sick most of last week, I was feeling so behind. I am finally caught up, except for this – blogging! The following are costume and shaloch manos (mishloach manot) ideas from last year.
Costumes:
Above is what my boys dressed up as last year – a rocker, Bat Dog, Robin and Batman.
One of my sons chose to be a rocker. All that required was a borrowed wig (thanks Michelle!), favorite pants with hole in the knee, and a favorite jammy shirt. The easiest of the bunch!
Another wanted to be Bat Dog, which I had never heard of. We looked up ideas on Pinterest and found what he looks like. We used:
- brown sweatshirt and sweatpants
- a homemade collar made of felt and velcro (sewed on) and decorated with permanent marker
- homemade ears made of felt and a headband
- a black mask (found at Michaels)
The last triplet wanted to be Robin. His costume was made from:
- red short-sleeved shirt (Michaels or Walmart)
- green long-sleeved polo shirt
- red pajama pants
- felt accents for the shirt and belt, glued with felt glue, velcro sewed on to secure belt, and decorated with permanent marker
- another black mask (from Michaels)
My oldest wanted to be Batman. His costume was made from:
- grey sweatpants and sweatshirt
- a black cape I made from black fabric, an elastic black ribbon for the neck and fabric glue, and decorated with permanent marker
- felt accents for the shirt and belt, glued with felt glue
- another black mask (from Michaels)
Shaloch manos:
Our own shaloch manos (mishloach manot) last year were made to be inexpensive, with a bit of creativity. With job struggles for us both, we needed to keep our costs down. So we went with an apple theme – red gift bag (from Party City), green leaves made from scrapbooking paper, labels printed on the computer, green ribbon, apples, apple laffy taffy and apple cereal bars (from Aldi). Simple, but cute.
Here are more ideas from shaloch manos we received last year that were creative, yummy and/or useful!
Pirate treasure theme – cardboard treasure box, goodies inside, scroll with poem on top
Italian delicacy theme – Pellegrino drink, dakkah spread, olive oil, and Italian bread. Such a special yummy treat and a beautiful, elegant presentation! (Great idea Tammy & Mark!)
Beach theme – pail and shovel, cute poem with food to match (Great idea Amy and Joshua!)
Shoe theme – The sisterhood of one of the local shuls always does beautiful, elaborate shaloch manos as a fundraiser. They come up with wonderful themes each year. Last year’s was shoes. The container was a shoebox of course, and inside were a shoe cookie cutter, a shoe-shaped cake knife, shoe luggage tag, a shoe notepad, shoestring potatoes, fruit by the foot, a shoe-shaped cookie, and more. They even put it all in a canvas bag from Famous Footwear!
Superhero theme – family initial superhero logo, blue paper bag, poem with foods to match – Powerade, Go Bars, celery, Popchips and Gushers. (Great idea Jessi and Arik!)
FAVORITE CONTAINERS:
Spring themed box – loved this one and it can be used for anything! I love reusable containers!
Mexican fiesta theme – this family always chooses a theme with matching container and costumes. They include a photo of the family dressed in costume on their container. They are amazing! The food matches, too! (Thanks Bella and Yosef!)
Related posts:
Surviving on a tight budget 
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