Halloween Costume Contest Winners !!

Well, when we started this contest we could have never guessed the reaction we received. Today we have completed pouring over the nearly 100 entries we received from around the country, and surprisingly, a few from overseas too! It was FANTASTIC to see so many pictures of so many children wearing some great costumes. What we noticed this year when we were trick-or-treating with our own kids was how many unique home made costumes were on display. That makes us feel better, because it's our opinion that the true Halloween spirit is best presented in something you took the effort to make yourself. This year, we were faced with the first year our own daughter finally realized that she could ask for her own outfit - and what did she choose to be..... you guessed it: a Feather Princess! As for our son, he decided he wanted to go all 'karate' this year and as such, we had ourselves a Ninja Warrior !!! Both costumes were not hard for me to create and the only real compromise was allowing our daughter to have a little pink purse she saw recently in a shop and our son to be able to have the plastic swords that he was way to excited to get his hands on. As you will all agree, there's no better thing than to watch them transform into their characters as they watch themselves in the mirror.... it's just SO FUNNY! Of course, with our son swinging his swords all around and pretending to jump out of trees, our little princess decided suddenly that she needed a sword too. Go figure! But, that's all part of the fun too - children changing their minds right up to the last minute. And, as some of your costumes showed us, that indecision wasn't just limited to our house.

Anyway, with so many wonderful costumes, it became one of the most difficult tasks of all to have to choose just one winner. We wanted to give a prize for all the entries but realized quickly if we did so we would be out of business. So, we came to this conclusion: We'd have our top 15 favorites and one of them would be our GRAND PRIZE WINNER. That way we could share with you a BIG winner and all the very close runner ups! For those of you who sent us your images, we thank you - believe me when I tell you it wasn't easy at all to even come up with a clear list of 15. 

the astronaut and the space alien

So, our GRAND PRIZE winner for this years Halloween Costume Contest goes to the 'Astronaut and the Space Alien' in Portland, Oregon. Otherwise known as 3 1/2 year old Pannonica ('PZ' for short) as the astronaut and her 15 month old sister Quinby as the googley-eyed space alien. Our decision was based on a mixture of uniqueness (it was our only astronaut) and knowledge of how difficult it is to create anything that complicated! Congrats guys and thank you Emily for sharing! 

In no exact order - we wanted to share with you our other top favorites. Really, we wish we could share with you every single

one of the entries we received... but it's just not possible. 

Wild Things: Christian and Micah (Thank You Nicole) 

Cat-ter-fly: 3 year old Stella mixes it up in Chicago (Thank You Bridgette) 

Peace Loving Hippy: Jane shares the LOVE in Rhode Island (Thank You Meredith)

Catapillar and Butterfly: Ada and Willem in NYC deliver some color! (Thank You Erin)

Scary Princess Ghost: Davis in NYC brings out the TERROR! (Thank You Heather and Rolyn)

Cupcake: How sweet is Olivia's costume in Felton, PA  (Thank You Tiersa)

Mermaid: Lucy is swimming in prettiness! (Thank You Becky)

Hello Kitty Ballerina: Mayu mixes it up the cuteness (Thank You Tatia and Scott)

Garden Gnome: 4 month old Cash lights up the garden! (Thank you Melissa)

MOST ORIGINAL COSTUME WINNER!!!

circus acrobats: Otis and Bee make a great performing duo! (Thank You Mimi)

The Prettiest Little Moth: Nora in CA flutters about! (Thank You Danielle)

Cheetah: Io in Washington DC sports the spots! (Thank You Alex)

Bloodhound and Bear: Penelope  and her pal Lily do it up just right in St Paul, MN! (Thank You Kelly)

Pixie Fairy, Deep Sea Diver, and Lowly Worm: Such Great Smiles - and a GOOD Sport in DAD! (Thank You Erika)

Thank you all again for making the Halloween Costume Contest such a HUGE success. There wasn't one single costume that didn't make us all ooh and ahh! 

halloween contest winners!

There were so many amazing costumes.. thank you all for being so enthusiastic and sending them all in so quickly! This year we received almost double the amount of entries as last year. Trust me, the decision was difficult. We all had lots of favorites, but we printed them up and held a totally anonymous contest...

here are our favorites:

obviously there were six favorites... so six winners!! please email me with your shipping address and we will send you a winning handbag!

Again we would like to thank all of you... it was really hard to only pull out these from the many people that sent in their wonderful costumes!

Thank you and let's do this again next year!!

Halloween - some safety tips from the Enviornmental Working Group

In a way I hate to make this post, but in another way I was happy to know this information so maybe you will be too. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) are the people behind the studies I published this summer on Nonchalant Mom on the safety of sunscreens (click here to see the blog), now they are reporting on some of the things we commonly use for Halloween and the actual safety of those items.

FACE PAINTING - EWG tested 10 face paints and out of the 10 all 10 contained lead ranging from 0.05 to 0.65 parts per million (ppm). Experts say that there is no safe level of lead exposure for children and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that parents avoid using cosmetics on their children that could be contaminated with lead. Furthermore, 6 out of 10 products contained the potent allergens nickel, chromium and/or cobalt at levels ranging from 1.6 to 120 ppm – far above the safety recommendations of industry studies.

click here to find out more and to download the report.

There are a few recipes that they recommend so that you can make the face paints yourself, but test them first on yourself to make sure they will not be 1) allergic and 2) stain your kids skin. Do not substitute synthetic food coloring for natural food coloring. Click here to find recipes and more information.

You could also use Rose Marie Swift makeup as it is completely non-toxic and is food grade (you could actually EAT it). Click here to visit her website for more information.

More suggestions from EWG:
1) choose makeup carefully
2) no hairspray
3) burn beeswax candles or candles without the metal wire in the wick. Traditional paraffin-wax candles are made from petroleum by-products
4) don't wear synthetic face masks or teeth.
5) choose treats that you would like your kids to have!
6) create a low impact costume, make one yourself or re-use or swap with friends.

click here to visit our Halloween contest winners from last year! Some great inspiration!!

Boo!

Halloween Costume Contest

Halloween night is almost upon us. Our kids have finally made up their mind about what costume they want to wear. I'm having a lot of fun making my daughter's 'Peacock Princess' costume festooned with colorful feathers... and if I'm lucky it will turn out just as she described to me. Our son has decided he wants to go for a more mysterious costume this year and has opted to be a Ninja. There's lots of wrapping with black cloth and he's never tired of pulling down his scarf to hide everything but his eyes. Then he jumps around in karate poses. It's always exciting.

Don't forget to take a picture of your little one in their costume and send it to us to enter into the Halloween Costume Contest. Just to remind you, this year - we want to offer two prizes:

Best Halloween Costume: Win $80 in Nonchalant Kids Clothing !!! 

Most Original Costume: Win a Lucky Fish children's t-shirt !!!

We'll leave the contest open until 5 November 2009 to allow for your pictures. You can send your pictures to karim@nonchalantmom.com with your child's first name only and city. We will consider them all. Keep in mind we will share them with our other readers. All of us here at the office will make the final choice for winners of both categories. Once the decisions are made, we'll contact you via your original email to us. We can't wait to see them!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN from all of us at Nonchalant Mom. 

So, let's see those costumes! 

Halloween Contest WINNERS!

the WINNER - Robin!

runner up!

I swear that everyone was really a winner this year.... so many amazing costumes! We had to do some heavy canvasing because I loved all of them! I had the neighbors over, the neighbors kids, MY kids, we laid them out and voted on our favorites - of the over one hundred entries I have to say that every one of them was super creative and so amazingly well executed! We thought we needed to show a few that were constantly in the top, to give you creative guys some ideas for next year...

I would love this supergirl to save me anyday! - so simple yet couldn't be cuter!

we had lot's of baby entries... but we all thought this one was well-made AND oh so cute and unique

I loved this one... there is also a dumbbell involved but this photo.. so cute!

Amelia Earhart complete with clouds on mom!

there is harry potter and then there is Harry Potter from the second book with the car, spiders... AMAZING!! to top if off they are reading the books so this is where they were in the book and decided to make a costume right there...

There are two of these, a butterfly AND a bird... it's amazing really! what a costume!

Yes, just had to include this because... its perfection! (love that she is in her carriage - it looks a little like she may just LIVE every day like this)

AND THE WINNER IS..... BATMAN AND ROBIN!!

The Winners!

Thank you EVERYONE for entering... it was so much fun to see what everyone puts into this holiday to make it fun and creative! My 6 year old said... "this is my favorite holiday! -- well, after that one where we get presents". Happy Holidays to everyone and THANK YOU AGAIN!!!