one year, i had to be out of town, but she wanted to be a stoplight... so the night before i left town, we made the body out of a large box & painted it yellow like the lights here in NYS. i rigged up red, yellow & green electric lights in the front for her, and she had a switch to change which light was on! (although the 6V battery was heavy, it mounted easily inside of the box). the cutest thing was the cap she made, same color as the box, and a bunch of wires poking out the top!

another halloween, she went as a mermaid, and i was a fisherman (we hand-made the mermaid tail - it came out great! turns out i'm really good at sewing )

another year, we attended a halloween wedding, where all the guests were asked to come in costume (really fun wedding, by the way - the bride was dressed up like a princess, the groom like a knight, the bridesmaids were ladies-in-waiting, the groomsmen looked like robinhood's "merry men", the priest was friar tuck , and the parents were kings & queens)
we went as fireflies... we made insect butts out of a sheer green fabric (stiffened with some fabric-stiffening product), and i fashioned some brackets inside with wire hangars. found some small, personal safety strobe lights at radio shack and put them inside the butts. my wife wore a fancy gown she got at a vintage clothing store, and modified for the occasion, and i actually rented a double-tailed tux (the butt stuck out perfectly between the tails). oh yeah - more sewing - we made the wings with stiff wire & tule. and of course we had antennae - mine were poking out of the top of my top-hat.

THEN, she had the inspiration to go as "fire". WTF?! i thought... how we gonna do THAT!? it turned out really cute - she got a little red dress, painted flames on it with fabric paint & glitter, as well as the high-heeled shoes & the long red gloves, and did her hair up & make-up wildly. i made a slim "backpack" for her, that was decorated like her dress, and carried a plastic container (with a lid) for water and dry-ice. short, clear plastic tubes were stuck through the top of the lid to allow the "smoke" to escape while keeping sloshing water inside. that actually worked out really well, because the tubes projected the vapor up & out - much further than if the lid was off. the smoke effect would last a good 15 minutes at a time.
i went as a fireman

that one was alot of fun - we went out to a bar after the party, and she got alot of attention... some said that she would have won the costume contest if we'd gotten there earlier.

this year, we took a break & recycled the mermaid & fisherman gig, because we need to get an early start on next year's costumes... she now wants to be a peacock, with the tail-feathers & everything! (OK OK, i tried to explain that the flashy birds are the males, and the females are actually plain, but "peackocks are pretty, and that's what she wants to be" ) i know that she just wants to kick a$$ at the costume contest.

so, now i have to figure out how to make the tailfeathers operate correcly (and don't fall off after 5 minutes)... making these things takes alot of time, so we'll need the lead-time before next halloween!