Welcome to the way-back machine, where we take a look at Halloween costumes past. This was Amy’s awesome idea, but she agreed to share with me because she’s my BIFF (best internet friend forever). I was one of those kids whose mom handmade all her costumes, which NOW I think was awesome but at I time I thought was SO LAME. Why couldn’t I have a cheap plastic Little Mermaid costume like all the other kids? (I mean besides the fact that my mom wasn’t crazy enough to let me Trick-or-Treat in 40 degree temps wearing a seashell bra.) Check out some of the best ones:

(Apologies for crappy scanned photos – my mom did them as PDF’s & changing them ruined the quality)

I am probably 3 1/2 or 4, based on the baby swing for my sister in the background. This one was actually made by my grandmother when my mom was a kid - I loved vintage, even as a toddler! Except back then we called it "dress up".

I am a bride and my sister is a fairy princess. My veil was made out of an old pair of curtains and I can still remember exactly how they smelled. I have no idea why I am holding wrapped presents.

This time I'M the fairy princess and Carolyn is an angel. There were other years with the same tutus/wands/wings combos - princess bride, ballerina princess, fairy bride, ballerina fairy. Whatever. Gimme a tutu and a crown and I am HAPPY. I should add my mom hand sewed all the sequins to all the tutus in all these pictures. WITH HER HANDS.

I wore this costume to school and I LOVED it. My grandmother made it (including the wig) for my mom when she was a kid. I remember being really sad when I outgrew it a few years later and couldn't wear it again. And check out the super sexy base housing in the background (this was the only time we ever lived on base.)

This was the BEST costume I ever wore. Not only did my mom make the genie costume by hand (out of satin! which is so hard to sew with! Project Runway taught me that!) but she made it FOR HERSELF when she was in middle school. AMAZING! She made Carolyn the Tiger Lily costume (we were obsessed with the live-action Peter Pan with Mary Martin where Tiger Lily is a blond) and she probably made Drew's costume too. Mother of the decade, amiright?

And this one again, because we all look so great and because I like scaring my middle school BFF by posting pictures of her on the internet (She reads my blog! How crazy is that?!)

Now it’s your turn! Link up a vintage-inspired Halloween post. It can be a photo of your costume from high school, a story about trick-or-treating in your snowboots, or memories of your best costume as a kid. Whatever you want! The linky will be open all weekend so be sure to check back and hop around to see everyone’s posts and link up. It’s a great way to get ideas for Halloween next year – I am totally going to talk my mom into making make Little Evan a clown costume.

When Amy over at Baby Baby Lemon suggested we do a blog hop of our collections, my first thought was that the only thing I’m collecting these days is dust bunnies. Seriously. I have quiet a variety under my couch and some of the specimens under my bed are practically antiques. They’re quite impressive.

Fortunately, I did plenty of collecting in my previous life. You know, the one where I actually read Country Living as a source of inspiration instead of laughing at the white-on-white color schemes and artistic arrangements of seashells left on coffee tables. HAHAHAHA Oh designers. Don’t you know my coffee table has been in the basement for a year? Where are the foam square play mats and bouncy chairs?

But thanks to baby gates and a certain little man’s shortness, I’ve managed to hold on to several groups of useless crap collections, even if I’m not actively adding to them. All of them are made of glass.

There are these:

Useless

These:

Currently Useless

These:

A tiny amount of a much larger useless collection

But I decided I should stick with something I collected deliberately, not accidentally. Something I really love and am always excited to add to. Something still totally, totally useless. And glass.

My chickens

I have no idea why I collect glass chickens. It started with a plastic rabbit, made in the same style, that I bought at Target to hold Easter candy. I think my mom mentioned Grandma used to have a glass chicken that looked like the rabbit, so when I saw one at a flea market I picked it up and put it in the china cabinet. Then I found another. And another. Then Mom gave me the ones from Grandma’s house. And then I was Someone Who Collected Glass Chickens and people started saying “oh I have one of those, do you want it?” I always kept my eyes open at garage sales and antique stores for interesting colors or sizes. I may have gone so far as to start cruising Ebay for more chickens – although I never actually bought any (the shipping was always outrageous – one of the benefits of collecting something so pointless and common is that they’re cheap).

Over the past few years, a few non-chickens have slipped into my collection…

Cock-a-doodle-doo Moo Quack Gobble Gobble

…But I try to keep the invaders to a minimum.

I don’t know what they’re for – eggs? chicken salad? candy? – or why they were once so popular but now end up going for $3 in crappy flea markets. But I do know one day my kids are going to be telling their kids that Grandma used to collect those funny glass chickens.

And then they can fight over who has to hold on to them.