“Stranger Things” Punny Halloween Costume for the Family
Strange and even stranger things are happening around these parts in preparation for Halloween.
Introducing…our family costumes for this Halloween: the Eggo-lovin’ “Eleven” & her “Stranger Things.”
Or if you want to add another layer of depth to the pun, consider it “Eleven from Stranger Things” (since she’s a character from the Netflix series, as Juniper was born from us). Gotta love a Halloween costume that requires some brain power to understand!
In fact, we love puns so much, this is our sixth consecutive Halloween dressing up in punny costumes that embrace the literal interpretation of the word.
What can I say? Puns: it’s how eye roll. {Yuk. Yuk.}
Here are all of our punny Halloween costumes from the past six years if you’re looking for some pun-spiration! A lot of these are easy to pull together in the last-minute. Can you guess each one? Check your answers by clicking the images in the collage!
Our Pun-spiration
Last year, we had a lot of “pun” working Juniper into our punny Halloween tradition with our “Ice Ice Baby” family costume. And I really wanted to do a costume theme for all three of us this year. But for the longest time, I was stumped. There are a lot of great punny costume ideas out there for duos (I have an entire blog post dedicated to them)…but not so much for trios.
However, some pun-spiration struck me when I came across this clever “Stranger Thing” costume by Molly Kateri on Instagram. It immediately got my gears turning for how we could adapt this costume idea for our family of three.
What’s “Stranger Things”?
For those who haven’t seen Stranger Things, it’s a Netflix original series set in 1983 (my birth year!). Here’s the premise, courtesy of I.M.D.B.:
“When a young boy disappears, his mother, a police chief, and his friends must confront terrifying forces in order to get him back.”
And it was that word, “terrifying,” that kept me from watching it at first. I love a good sci-fi mystery, but I steer clear of the horror genre. #vividimaginationproblems
But after seeing the series’ high viewer ratings, Mark and I decided to check out the first episode…and we were hooked right out of the gate–from that killer synthesizer music–to the 80s references of my childhood–to the lovable characters. It reminds me a lot of some of my favorite movies from girlhood like The Goonies and E.T.
That said, this is not a series for kids, nor would I recommend it to all adults. We are watching it for the third time this week in preparation for the release of season 2, and I still cover my eyes when the monster shows up. Like I said, #vividimaginationproblems.
Juniper as Eleven
I think part of why I was drawn to the story of Stranger Things so much is because one of the characters, Eleven, reminds us so much of our daughter Juniper. The two of them share much in common:
- a limited vocabulary
- short hair
- a serious face 99% of the time
- deep brown eyes that can stare into your soul
Mark and I agreed: Juniper would make a smashing “Eleven” for Halloween this year!
Mark and Lauren as “Stranger Things”
To complement our “stranger” daughter, Mark and I had fun adding a Duffer brothers twist to Dr. Suess’s classic Thing 1 & Thing 2 characters from The Cat in the Hat…hence our comfy red jumpsuits with the blue hoods in XL from Party City.
But we’re not just Thing 1 & Thing 2 anymore. With the addition of a few key costume pieces that pay homage to characters from the show, we’re now “Stranger Things.” {Cue the slow head nod.}
Dustin Costume
Mark embraced the character of the ever-endearing Dustin, rocking his *trucker hat and 80s style denim backpack (both Amazon finds).
Gotta love that grin.
Joyce Byers Costume
And here’s yours truly as Joyce Byers, a mom on a mission to find her son, no matter what the cost.
I found an army green jacket at Target that had Joyce written all over it (similar one HERE).
And I accessorized with a light-up Christmas bulb necklace and earrings in addition to holding my bundle of lights (if you haven’t seen the series yet, I won’t give away spoilers, but I’ll just say that the lights are an important part of Joyce’s quest to find her son).
Eleven Costume
I think I had the most fun pulling together Juniper’s Eleven costume, recreating that iconic outfit the boys give her to wear to school when trying to pass her off as Mike’s second cousin from Sweden. {Snicker.}
Juniper already had a vintage pink smocked dress hanging in her closet, passed down from my mom’s babyhood. Perfect! (Here’s a similar style dress on Amazon.) And a visit to our local Once Upon a Child resale shop helped us procure a blue jacket and pair of white sneakers.
While there are plenty of Eleven-style socks out there on Amazon for adults, there are none for little tykes that I could find. So I simply purchased a pair of white ribbed knee-high baby socks and DIY’d my own.
I snapped a picture of the sock-makeover in process to help out any other friends out there looking to make their own. Basically, I just trimmed off the ends so they would hit her mid-calf, then I covered some kid cups in plastic wrap, pulled up the socks, taped off my lines using painter’s tape I cut to size, and then used a foam brush to dab on the acrylic paint in a green-yellow-green pattern. I recommend dabbing up and down rather than painting side-to-side to avoid bleed-through.
You can also add an awesome solution to your paint called fabric medium that turns any acrylic paint into fabric paint. I skipped this step, so the socks came out a little stiff. However, I carefully removed the socks from the cups before they completely dried, so they didn’t end up too stretched out.
If I may be so bold, I think I deserve some sort of award for managing to create Eleven’s signature “nose-bleed” on a squirming 16-month-old. I used a little bit of red stage makeup on a Q-tip and my magical mom powers to git’ ‘er done (a.k.a. distraction with Little Baby Bum on the laptop and making it a game). We had to re-do the nosebleed a few different times during the photo shoot when she rubbed her face, so I became an expert by the end.
To complete the look, we gave Juniper her first ever Eggo waffles. And she became as obsessed with them as Eleven did, emptying the box of every one and nibbling on them all.
Leggo my Eggo!
Family Photo Shoot
Here are some more photos of baby “Eleven” and her “Stranger Things” from our family photo shoot in the 90% humidity. #FloridaLife
We took a few “in character”…
…Junie really got into the eating-waffles part.
Really into it.
This picture felt meme-worthy. I couldn’t resist myself:
And we took a bunch out of character. Because I have a hard time keeping a straight face.
“If there’s something strange in your neighborhood” …it’s probably me and my family.
But I wouldn’t have it any other way. #TooMuchPun
Question: Stranger Things fans, on a scale of 1-10 how excited are you for season 2 to drop this Friday?
Answer: Eleven.
Hungry for more Puns?
If you’re eager to check out more punny ideas that involve your precious littles, I have 20 more for you to peruse:
And the pun doesn’t stop there! Here are the other collections of clever and punny costumes I’ve gathered over the years. So many of these ideas are great for last minute and can often be pulled together using items you already have lying around the house. Dig in!
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Stay strange. {Wink.}
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This is your best work (as far as punny costumes go). I’m only slightly biased. Looking forward to see what 2018 holds!
Aw, shucks. You’re the best. The Thing 1 to my Thing 2…forever. Looking forward to more punny adventures together, my love!
We all took a look and enjoyed this. Wow, amazing how you came up with the costumes, bloody nose, and socks! …”you almost tempt us to go out and get Eggo waffles,” said her Eleven’s great-grandfather! A great repertoire of punny costumes as well.
You guys are so adorable, and brilliant! So many Easter eggs to this year’s Halloweening! Have fun, kids!