Easy Minion Costume!

We had a community Halloween event in September this year, so we got a nice early start on costumes! We decided to do a group "Despicable Me" costume this year with our cousins, and I think it turned out great! Here is our group shot:

Here were the girls' costumes. We just got everything out of their closets, with a few creative additions (such as the 10-year-old wearing an old 5T green blazer I knew I had down in our crawl space). My youngest wasn't about to wear the overalls and yellow striped tee-shirt Agnes usually wears, so we went with ballerina Agnes. Let's just say it was a loose interpretation.

I thought I'd post a quick how-to on making the minion costumes. They were so cheap, and relatively easy to do!

First we ordered yellow beanies off Amazon. I think they were about $4 each. We also bought the yellow tee-shirts from Michael's for $3 each. The glasses were an AWESOME find (also at Michael's) for only $1! We were looking for "nerd glasses" because we thought that would be close enough. Not sure what these glasses were supposed to be for, but they sure worked well for minions, and you can't beat $1!

For the shirts, we took some denim fabric we had, cut a rectangle and two strips to look like overalls, and then just stitched them down with a quick zig-zag stitch. We didn't even turn the edges under, because we figured these shirts wouldn't get used more than two times. We thought we were done with the shirts, but the kids kept asking about the "G" logo, so I went ahead and cut one out on my Silhouette onto some vinyl and stuck it to the shirt. I'm not fancy enough to do iron-on yet, so I literally just slapped some vinyl on there. Again, I'm not planning on these lasting forever. Then the boys wore jeans, and a long-sleeve tee-shirt under. Black gloves optional in your neck of the woods. :)

For the hats, I took black pipe cleaners, cut them in half, and just stuck them through the beanies. I did all the hair a little bit different. My son specifically wanted his all close together, like Kevin, because I guess Kevin is the tallest minion and my son is very proud that he is the tallest cousin. LOL. Here is a pic where you can see the hair a little bit better.

Unfortunately our event had nothing but POURING rain, so I didn't get the best pics of the minion costumes, but I'll try again on Halloween. In the meantime, hopefully this at least gives you an idea of how we did ours!

Website Review: Diet Bet

(Photo Credit)

This is not a sponsored post in any way - I just wanted to introduce you to a website you may not have heard of, and let you know my thoughts and experience.

In March, I was so happy to reach what I had planned to be my goal weight. But.... I got lazy, summer happened, and by the end of my summer vacation I had gained 7 pounds. I needed to do something - I am only 5 feet tall, so every pound is visible on my body.

I read about Diet Bet, and I was intrigued. People start challenges, with a buy-in amount they set between $10 and $500. The leader of the challenge also chooses the start date, and then participants have 28 days to lose 4% of their body weight. For me, that was a little over 5 lbs. Definitely a manageable amount to lose in a month, but not an easy amount. Then, at the end of the challenge, everyone who lost 4% splits the pot.

You weigh-in and weigh-out with very specific procedures that involve taking full-body (obviously clothed) pictures and weighing in on a digital scale with a "Word of the Day" written on a piece of paper. Then your pictures and entries are verified by Diet Bet employees, and you may be randomly selected for further verification, such as doing a Skype weigh-in.

For me, this was a great set-up. I loved knowing that I wasn't competing against anyone other than myself. I love fitness challenges because I'm super competitive and highly motivated by winning money, but some challenges are hard for me because I'm small. For people significantly bigger than me, it's easier to lose larger amounts of weight. So this challenge was great, because as long as I stayed dedicated, I could win my money back (and hopefully more!), and it had nothing to do with anyone else. I have no idea what the average percentage is for winners versus losers, but I personally entered a contest with a $25 buy-in and won $40. So I got my money back, plus just a little more.

What do you think? Anyone else think something like this would work for them? The only thing I didn't like about this was that I didn't know anyone else doing it, so I'm hoping to get some buddies to join the next one I do, which will be in October. I'm thinking about this one from Jillian Michaels.