Costume Collection Part 4: PEANUTS & CHOCOLATE BARS

This year, one of my favorite families came up with a very creative idea to showcase their family's personalities. 

And the story goes like this:

Once upon a time, there lived a beautiful Hershey's Milk Chocolate bar, and a handsome bag of Planter's Salted Peanuts.

They met and fell in love!

They had four delicious "babies":  Butterfingers, Snickers, Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, and Peanut M & M's.

The Butterfinger bar was their firstborn.  He is very responsible and helpful with his younger "peanut & chocolate" siblings.  He is also very tall.

Then along came the next offspring.  The Snickers bar.  He provides a lot of chuckles to their family life.   

And of course, "Snickers really satisfies you!"

Then along came a single serving Peanut Butter Cup.  He is covered in cute chocolate and very sweet on the inside.

Lastly, a "FUN SIZE" addition to top off their family.  Peanut M & M's. She is fun and colorful and you just want to eat her all up!



Did you enjoy that story?

Now would you like to see a little bit of how they were created?

We started by assigning each family member to each treat.  And of course, I had to taste all of them, you know, to get into the characters - that's what a good "costumer" does, after all.

I took each person's measurements and estimated fabric yardage for main bodies and lettering and details.  

I graphed it out to get the right proportions.  This was to help in estimating size and how much fabric to buy.

Then I bought yards and yards of felt.  And some "WonderUnder" for fusing and applique.

I cut and sewed the main bodies to the proper size for each family member.  (See diagram below for specifics).

I went to my local copy center and enlarged those chocolate bar wrappers by 200%.  Then some by another 200%.  After piecing and cutting and taping, I arrived at the perfect-sized letters for each candy.  (Of course, this is just a sampling of the hundreds of pieces, as you can imagine.)  

I then painstakingly cut out those paper letters.  Then transferred those cuttings to the right felt colors.  

For the smaller letters, I fused the Wonder Under to the backside of the felt, then traced the letters backwards (mirror image) and cut those out.    

Then I just peeled off the paper backing and ironed (fused) them onto the main body in the correct position.  (I actually used a press cloth in between when I fused.)

I traced around the larger letters and just cut them inside the Sharpie line.  They were just held in position with pins and I sewed an outline around each letter.  

Yes, I sewed around every one of them, people!  Yeah, that's how I roll.  No cheapy-cheapy for me.  Or maybe that's the OCD part of me I cannot let go of.  Oh well, I think it was worth it.  This family can wear these costumes out, but those letters will never come off on the wash or play.

I added special details as needed, like the embroidered "m" on the Peanut M & M's.

I appliqued the m&m's and the peanuts on in a random fashion.

And the special face and arm details on Mr. Peanut.

I sewed across the top for the shoulders, leaving an opening for the head in the center.  Then bottom hem was just left open for walking.  I left armholes open.  And in the Planter's Peanuts, I cut side slits to access pockets.  Some of the wrappers got the raggedy-edge treatment just like the original wrappers.  

Then they purchased shirts, pants,and jammies to wear underneath.



Here are pictures of the candy before everyone tried them on!

Then it was time for the photo shoot.

And a recap of each one in costume!

Wouldn't you say this was ALL worth it?!


I will never look at these chocolate bars the same - EVER!

I link up to these parties. ~If you are interested in receiving updates and future posts from this blog, please sign up to "FOLLOW" on the top right of this page. Let's keep in touch!~