all hail the rightful ruler of sugar rush!

so for my fifth go-round at the tinkerbell half marathon (that's crazy, right?), i decided that i wanted to break away completely from the whole tinkerbell/peter pan theme.  there are always four gazillion sets of wings out on that course, with about half as many peter pans, a ton of captain hooks and lots of other fairies.  i'd had a great time last year dressed as mr. smee, but i think i'm pretty much out of costume ideas for that theme.

one of our favorite movies is wreck-it ralph.  and i love vanellope von schweetz:

and i'd even picked up a mint green hoodie a long time ago with this costume in mind.  i knew i could use a brown sparkle athletic skirt, and so i turned to etsy to help me with the rest of it.  i was able to find cute little candy-shaped hair clips that were relatively cheap, and then i found a seller who made leggings that look just like vanellope's tights.  they were a little pricey, but i figured it'd be easier than trying to follow one of the tutorials i'd found online to make my own.

except that when the leggings arrived, they weren't right.  instead of the two different designs on each leg, both legs were exactly the same.

the seller apologized profusely and offered to get me another pair, but because each one is special ordered it wouldn't arrive in time.  boo.  i was super bummed, because now i had to either scrap the whole idea or figure out a way to make my own pair.

one day while cruising through michaels for a whole different project, i happened to pass through the fabric painting aisle and came across this:

i figured that with some painters tape and a little help from my most favorite, best-ever assistant, i could pull it off.  and so i turned to my pattern collection, dug out some white knit material from my fabric stash, and stitched together a quick pair of leggings.

and then i got to thinking - if i painted them flat, when i put them on they might stretch out just enough that you'd see the white material peeking out.  clearly, the only way to do this properly was to actually be wearing the pants while painting them to make sure the color was even.  right?  well, although she agreed with my train of thought my assistant wasn't all that excited to work on my project.  i guess it didn't help that i waited until almost 9:00 at night to get started.

trying to get the tape on just right was a pain in the ass, i admit.  many apologies to my lovely assistant.  but she did a great job:

then it was time to head outside to start painting. she helped me wrap some wax paper around my waist to try and keep the overspray off of me and then got to work.

trying to get those purple stripes was really, really tricky.  and we weren't at all sure how it turned out, since we had to let the pants dry before we could safely remove the tape.

oh, and we thought the painting was tough?  no.  taking those damn things off of me while the paint was wet, while still trying really hard not to move the tape out of place was...challenging.  it would have been really, really funny if we were watching someone else do it.  and once it was finally done and the pants were hanging up to dry, i noticed that i'd been marked.

so that mint green hoodie i'd bought for myself?  well, i'd forgotten that the damn thing was sleeveless.  yeah.  and i didn't want to freeze my ass off during that run.  buuuuuuut...i'd bought a similar hoodie for the bean with the same thing in mind.  it was a size XL from old navy, and so i found it in her closet, tried it on, and was pleased to find that it fit.  i found some hot pink ribbon to add a few accents to it:

and then the next day, i laid all of the pieces out on the floor to see how it looked.

the old lady rolled her eyes at me, but i was pretty excited at how it all came together.

not bad, right?  with just a couple of days before the half, i was finally ready.