Monthly Archives: October 2010

Hey BOO! It’s time for Some Spooky Friday Links

Link Hootenanny,

1. The Most Adorable Pinata Treat Bags You’ve Ever Seen.


My genius friend Teri (creator of Giddy Giddy, the ORIGINAL felt hair clippies for tots!) always has something amazing up her sleeve. I’m so loving her sweet Pinata Treat Bags. Cute as can be, eh??

2. Genius Halloween-Themed Bento Boxes.


Dottie sent me this link to The Kitchn and I am just dying over these brilliant Halloween-themed bento boxes for kiddo lunches.

3. The Cutest Little Sock Monkey Outfit EVER!


We at the Kiddo are big fans of Kathleen from Grossgraine. Look at this crazy cute little Sock Monkey outfit she whipped together for her adorable daughter Eloise. Wowza.

4. We Love These Simple but Sweet Ghosts!

One of my favorite, no-sew, halloween crafts are little ghosts! Check out this cute post my friend Jenny did for Elsie’s A Beautiful Mess.

5. You’re Gonna Flip for These Modern Kiddo Cupcake Toppers from Draw! Pilgrim!

Oh our brilliant friend Pilgrim has done it again! Check out these adorable cupcake toppers she created. There are TEN different designs for you to print out! For Spooky Kiddos click here and for Silly Spookers (ghosts and candy corn etc) click here. You can also score some awesomely evil Treat Bag lables on Pilgrim’s site too. Get your hands on them from Draw! Pilgrim!

6. Lawdy, it’s MORE Amazing Vintage Halloween Costume Photos.

My friend Heather (mama of Cash, our Weekly Kiddo) sent me a link to these vintage Halloween pics. Seriously I can’t get enough of them. I was pleased to see that they featured one of the same photos I did in my post. Brilliant/kitschy minds think alike!

7. Best of Modern Kiddo’s Halloween Edition

I have to say, we had some awesome posts the last two weeks. Just in case you missed ’em (or perhaps want to relive the glory), here are the highlights!

+ Dottie’s Vintage Kiddo Spectacular! Retro Costumes from eBay and Etsy!

+ Alix’s Creepy Cool Vintage Halloween Photos from the 60 and 70s

+ Dottie’s Besty of Etsy Halloween Costumes (loooove the mummy)

+ Real Life :: Alix’s  Trip to the Apple Orchard and Pumpkin Patch

+ Our pal Jek taught us a groovy Googly Eye Cupcake Craft

+ Real Life :: The hilarious tale of Wolfie, the boy who hated dressing up

+ The groovy ghoulie Tweedlebop Retro Music MP3 mix

+ The Spectacular Modern Kiddo Reader Costume Parade!! OH, and here are three late breaking submissions:

Reader Jenny sent us her adorable two year old daughter Esme’s costume as “Supa-Woman”. Love this!

My friend Lynn crafted up this AMAZING “Angry Birds” costume for her cutie, Miles. The hottest game is now the hottest costume!!! SO GOOD, you go Miz Landry!!

And finally, reader Jenn sent us a more recent photo of her awesome son Max sportin’ this year’s fabulousness (he was a Where the Wild Things Are “Max” in our Costume Parade). Check this out: AMAZING!!!!

WHEW!!!!! What a Halloween it’s been….I hope you guys all have a safe, happy and FUN Halloween this weekend! We’ll be expecting a full update on Monday!

Meet Cash! Our Weekly Kiddo

Weekly Kiddos

Happy Friday, friends. Our creepy Halloween week is quickly coming to a close, and in honor of our spooky fun, I bring you a special Weekly Kiddo. This is Cash and he is officially a Master of Disguise. Cash is the middle child of Modern Kiddo regular, Heather/Three Ring Circus Vintage. He is an incredibly handsome and stylish lad, but what makes him so awesome is his willingness to dress up in pretty much any costume his mom dreams up! Take it away Cash!


Tee hee. The hair….THE HAIR! This Werewolf costume is a favorite of mama Heather’s, and it only cost her $3 to make! Now that’s good craftin’!

This adorable little brave looks ready to be sidekick to the Lone Ranger.

Yeah DYING over this Hamburglar outfit—funny and fabulous.

Holy Cuteness, Batman! Check out this awesome super hero goodness!

This Robin outfit is crazy cute and was handcrafted by Heather from an authentic 70s pattern!

Cash’s whole family likes to get in on the action—here he is with his little sister Penelope and big brother Dax!

Heather told us:

“Cash is the boy I can convince to be anything: Wearwolf, Skunk, Robin….you name it! He loves it. His older brother Dax was born the week after Halloween but he has a mind of his own and is very particular about his outfits. Cash is our dress up superstar.”

A lot of the credit goes to Heather who clearly has a passion for dressing up…but also has a knack for making incredible homemade costumes. Take a look:


This skunk costume was worn by all three of Heather’s children. Stinky cute, as Miss Dottie would say!


And of course….a yummy, mummy made by a cute mummy! Bravo Heather! You are an inspiration and your gorgeous kiddos are amazing. YAY for CASH! Be sure to stop by Heather’s amazing vintage kiddo shop, Three Ring Circus.

PS
Before we go, I have to give you a peek at our sweet Modern Kiddo fave, Penelope (aka PIPPI!) in her Strawberry Shortcake costume. Loooooove ya little lady!

Real Life :: Feeling Halloweenie

Real Life, Real Life : Alix

Oooooh the Halloween count down is on! It’s such a fun time of year but boy have we been crazy busy. Here’s a little bit of what we’ve up to!

We started the weekend off on Saturday morning, when Wolfie’s elementary school had a big Harvest festival. It’s a fun carnival with games, pumpkin decorating, costumes, sugar skull painting (for Day of the Dead), tasty BBQ and bake sales and all kinds of silliness. I couldn’t get it together to wear a costume (I had to work late the night before) but I thought this made for a festive, spooky ensemble:

The rib-cage skeleton dress was from Target’s Rodarte collaboration and it’s covered in sequins. The funniest thing was that one of the moms came up to me and said, “Hey! Great halloween outfit!” then she paused and said a little apologetically, “Or um….you know….regular outfit.” hahaha. It’s kind of funny being known as the mama who is a tad eccentric in her wardrobe.

Each classroom sponsored a game booth and our class took on the illustrious Water Balloon sling shot! Lemme tell ya, filling up 100s of water balloons is no easy task. Thankfully we had some fantastic helpers.

Here’s Wolfie taking on the sling shot….he’s wearing his Ben 10 outfit which is TOTALLY too small and seriously makes him look like Captain Wedgie…some modifications are gonna have to made by Sunday. You’ll notice that the ground is all wet…this was partially from the water balloons and partially from the MASSIVE RAIN we had!!! But the rain didn’t dampen anyone’s spirits. A fine time was still had by all! And the sun even managed to peek out for a bit.

Then on Sunday we hit Tricycle Fest, an awesome free gig put on by the San Francisco Public Library. My girls The Devil-Ettes danced (adorable as ever), amazing (and super adorable) indie folk singer Francis England performed and of course Greg’s rockin’ kid band, The Time Outs, played an action packed set too! Even though it rained cats and dogs and had to be moved indoors we had an incredible turn out. [pardon me whilst I slip on a little Hipstamatic photo action….]




And FINALLY…..I saw some super amazing costumes that I thought you guys would love to see. FINALLY no rain on this day. We begin with the Scooby Doo family. Um, how cute is this Mystery Machine wagon??

I thought this jelly belly costume was so simple-but-clever! Yep, those are little balloons in the bags.

This Sushi Girl was adorable….her red bag was made to look like soy sauce—the “rice” was made of packing peanuts!

Looooved this adorable brother and sister combo:

hahaha, the recycling kiddo is so California huh! Amazing. Yes, that’s a milk jug on her head. Love it.

And finally, my personal fave….. the CLUE family! Pure genius!

Only four more days til Halloween friends. I can’t wait to see what costumes you guys cook up. We’ll see what happens to little Captain Wedgie. As for me, I’m just crossing my fingers it doesn’t rain on Sunday!


And for the record I believe it was Colonel Mustard, with the lead pipe, in the library.

Tweedlebop :: The Super Rad Putrid Pal 2010 Halloween Mix

Downloads, Kiddo Style: Vintage

I am very fortunate to know a lot of groovy artists. One of the coolest guys around these parts is Michael Fleming, aka Tweedlebop! I met him several years ago when he did some cool artwork for the Devil-Ettes and then again for The Time Outs. His work always makes me smile.

I selected some of his more spooky artwork for this post, but his style is so versatile and groovy—I think it would be excellent decor in any hip little kiddo’s bedroom!



Michael is the creator of a wildly popular comic called The Putrid Pal which he describes as:

The Putrid Pal is an undead French boy who lives under the sea. He just wants a good friend to play with, but none of the non-monster kids of Woe Beach want to have anything to do with him. He grunts out single words from time to time—but only in French.

Hee. How awesome is that? You can even buy a little urban vinyl doll of Putrid Pal.

Every year Michael makes a super duper groovy Halloween mix of totally cool vintage vinyl tunes—think spooktacular surf rock and 50s and 60s coolness. Trust me, you will not be disappointed!! I was so thrilled when I got an email from Michael about this year’s mix. It’s so awesome! And guess what? You can download it HERE! I promise that you and the kiddos will be groovin’ around the house on Halloween to this one!

HURRAY MICHAEL! I think you’ll think he’s as awesome as I do.

Be sure to visit the Tweedlebop web site to see more of his terrific work. You can also swing by the Tweedlebop shop and scoop up prints of your own and of course if you download the mix, won’t you please swing by the Tweedlebop Facebook page and become a fan? As ze Putrid Pal would say, “Merci.”

Besty of Etsy–Elise Hooper

Etsy Love, Retro Modern, , ,

OK, I have a little confession to make.  I love holiday focused kiddo clothes. I just can’t help it.  Call it totally pandering to the holiday gods to get some extra candy/pumpkin pie/gelt/candy, but I can’t help myself. Particularly if it’s rather clever and not so obvious.  Like this darling jumper from Etsy seller, Elise Hooper Designs that Alix sent me a link to.  I must admit it does involve two of my favorite things in the whole wide world–ric-rac and a jumper. But with that sweet little Halloweeny spider, well, it had me at ric-rac.

And then I saw her other pieces. Uh oh… I was in trouble.

Simple design plus knock out stunning fabric equals magic in the hands of the right seamstress.

And Elise Hooper has that magic.  Like with this wee placket.  And owls. Oh, for the love of the owls! Eek!

And this little bit of fall festivity is killing me.  I have such a weak spot for acorns and maple leaves.  Is this dress not perfect for Thanksgiving dinner? Oh, perfection.