50's Night at AWANA

Last week the kids AWANA club had 50's Night. They all dressed up like they were going to a Sock Hop.  We checked out the thrift stores for skirts, but didn't find anything for Ellie.  We also checked out my Mom's house, because she made a bunch of poodle skirts years ago for her job.  We had no luck.

We researched the 1950's and clothing online.  Then I started searching through my material.  A bunch of my material was from my Mom's leftovers.  As I was searching, I came across half of a pink cut out poodle skirt!  Then I found the other half!  Well, I only needed half, because they were adult size and Ellie is not adult size yet.  So, I sewed up the side together then rolled down the top and made a casing for elastic.  I had Ellie search for poodle silhoettes.  She printed her favorite and I cut it out of black felt.  Then I sewed on the poodle by hand (why by hand? I don't know!).  Then I found a length of gold beading that my grandmother had given me.  I cut that and glued it on with hot glue for the poodles collar.

These are the leftovers.

I found my almost-like-saddle shoes, my pink sweater with my intial embroidered on it and a black and white polk-a-dot scraf.  Here is Ellie's finished look:

Wyatt was even easier to fix up.  Aren't boys usually easier in the clothes department?  We did have to go to Walmart (nothing at the thrift store, again), because my son doesn't wear jeans.  He wear slacks and sports pants.  He also didn't own a white shirt, because they usually get stained.  I explained to him how he had to roll up his pants and his shirt sleeves; and he (and Ellie) had to tuck in his shirt.  Not tucking in his shirt would have been sloppy and just not done in the 1950's.  We bought some "wet look" gel  to "grease" his hair with.  I think he looks pretty cute as a greaser.  He promised to dress up like this when we go on our date (and he did!).