crafty costumes

Even though it was a while ago, I am so proud of my Halloween costume I felt it necessary to pay it tribute in the form of writing about it! The idea for this group costume came from Danielle, who decided we should all be feminized versions of our favorite male super-heroes. Danielle would be Superman-woman, Christina would be Spiderman-woman, and I would be Batman-woman. You could purchase a skanky version of our costumes online for about $60, so we decided to follow in our traditions of Halloweens past and go the home-made route instead. This ended up to be a lot more time consuming than we would have ever guessed. Once we had a general idea for what our outfits should look like, I wrote up lists of items we'd need to make them ourselves. The catch was we had to be able to do it all without the usage of sewing (since none of us know how). Danielle and I spent 4 hours at the mall hunting for colorful fishnets and a red skirt, but nothing came up. Frustrating! The next day Tian and I hunted around Wal-Mart for about 2 hours before finally gathering everything we'd need. Surprisingly, the majority of our supplies ended up coming from our own closets.

We were making these costumes for a Halloween party at our neighbors house here in Lexington, and so the day of the party involved several hours of preparation. For Tian's costume, we needed a spidey eye mask. Free-hand sketching it, guessing the measurements, cutting it from felt and then attempting to make a strap around Tian's head was more challenging than you'd think! I also had to make Bat ears for myself. After several failed attempts with felt I settled for using black cardboard which I taped to a black head-band. I had to be careful they didn't look like cat ears and that they were properly spaced. This was also more difficult than you'd ever think. So, in case you wanted to know, here is the run down on how we creatively made our costumes:
Bat-Woman : I bought a black dress, so that part was easy. I then free-hand drew the bat symbol (which I am pretty proud of!), cut it from yellow felt, and used double sided tape to stick to my dress. I tried to find yellow fishnets, but had to settle for black. I made arm bands by cutting up black felt and pinning it together (I later regretted this when the pins kept snagging my tights). I made the headband for the ears, I bought a yard of black fabric, cut up the bottom to be pointy, then rolled the edges and pinned it to my dress for my cape. I then added finishing touches of black pumps, black nail polish, yellow earrings (same one as Danielle and Tian's but in a different color) and cutting and pinning yellow ribbon for a belt. I am pretty pleased with how everything turned out. I definitely have a new found love for fake eyelashes too!

Spider-Woman : You already know about the mask. That was the worst part. It had to look like Spiderman's eye shape but also fit her head, and I didn't have anything to look off of. But we did it! Tian's costume was definitely the most challenging to make. For the top, she bought a child's costume, and we cut the bottom off. We then cut off the sleeves to make it into a cute spider shirt, and then used the extra fabric to be her arm bands. She had blue earrings, blue nail polish, and a blue ring- and luckily we found her some red fishnets. We could not find a blue skirt anywhere so she bought a yard of shiny blue fabric, and we then experimented with rolling, folding, and cutting it until Tian finally invented a way to do it. She did something with threading string and using safety pins I believe. It took a while. It was a little weird at the top but her belt covered it up and made it look great! I think her skirt turned out nicely.

Super-Woman : Danielle's costume started out one way, and then the day of the party Kristine discovered a different way to make it. For her outfit she used a red dress in her closet that had a white top, and she covered the top with a blue sports bra. The bottom of the dress then just looked like a red skirt. She had gold ribbon in her room, so that became her belt. I then drew, cut, taped, and pinned yellow and red felt to make her Super-man logo. She also had the earrings and corresponding blue fishnets, along with blue fake eye-lashes and a french-manicure with the colors of blue and red. She did the same thing as me for her cape- pinning fabric. She then added a finishing touch of Julia's bright red heels.

Our other preparations for the party involved copious amounts of eye-makeup, glitter, a first attempt at fake eyelash application, felt cutting galore, and using over 40 safety pins. Theresa drove down to join us in getting ready, and then John made a celebrity appearance at the end. He learned he was coming to the party at 7pm that night, and it was 80 miles away from his house! Theresa's costume was awesome, very authentic- and John's costume was authentically creepy! It's not in the picture, but he had a real gas mask he wore with the camo.

The party ended up being a lot of fun. The girls who hosted it (The Arlington Ladies- Brittany, Chelsea, Liz) had lots of good food, decorations, and a strobe light that ended up being great for dancing. There was a good turnout, and it was definitely fun to dance and party it up with all of our friends. At one point it was like a mini high-school reunion too. A lot of girls we graduated with were in town for the party. We got many compliments on our costumes from everyone too. It was, all in all, a very fun time. Lots of work, but worth it.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!