Month: October 2008

There’s such a thing as getting too creative… (Funny, I’ve been told this by editors, too).

First up, The Halloween Costume No One Can Guess:

Pond Scum!

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Steal husband’s pair of baby blue one-piece long johns in comfy waffle-print cotton. Do this completely ignorant of the fact that it will cost $100 to replace them.
2. Tie-dye long johns in shades of moss green and puke yellow.
3. Cut old pillowcase into strips and also dye in shades of scum green and scuzz yellow. Sew these “weeds” all over your long johns so that they flutter when you walk.
4. Smear face with dirt and draw vines and weeds on your temples with liquid eyeliner.
5. Wear spider or other insect earrings. Glue little plastic bugs all over your costume.
6. Attach more plastic weeds to head using barrette.
7. Assure guests that YOU ARE NOT MOTHER EARTH!! YOU ARE POND SCUM!! POND SCUM! Can no one get it?
8. Remind self to invite smarter guests to next party.

Second up, even if your child begs and begs and begs, unless he’s a strapping 15-year-old with Incredible Hulk-like muscles, do not ever ever create the following costume: 

Robot Boy!

INSTRUCTIONS (For Those Who Do Not Follow Warnings):

1. Allow child to destroy old computer. Allow child to pick out which pieces of computer he wants glued onto his costume. Do not ever think of advising child to choose pieces other than those he desires with his oh-so-cute widdle heart.
2. Promise child that should a device call a Blog ever be invented you shall not admit if he is Eldest or Youngest on said blog.
3. Buy gray vinyl and and cut hole for his cuteness head, creating a poncho that can fit over even the heaviest snow suit. HINT: Vinyl for kids’ Halloween costumes is my Best Kept Secret (regarding Halloween). I’ve created homemade Batman and Ninja Turtle costumes using vinyl on which you can then draw muscles, etc. Vinyl makes a great shell for a turtle, on which you can draw the turtle shell lines, and then add a fabric front in yellow, all stuffed with newspapers for padding. You want pictures and detailed instructions? Come back next year.
4. Glue computer parts onto poncho with Shoe Goo. (Shoe Goo can be found in your workshop, if you have a forester for a husband. If you can not find Shoe Goo in your workshop, divorce current husband and marry a forester OR go to nearest workwear store or maybe hardware store and insist on Shoe Goo and no other!) HINT: If you’re too lazy to follow my instructions, find some other glue, but it must be thick and gooey and capable of holding heavy computer parts on vinyl.
5. Cover child’s face with silver makeup.
6. Create hat out of cardboard and tin foil. Attach over toque with torn-up pillowcase strips for ties. (Sure, you can use fabric other than old pillowcases, but why bother when fifty million old pillowcases are falling out of your linen closet?) HINT: Pillowcases make excellent Trick or Treating bags.
7. Very quickly clean every last trace of silver makeup off child’s face once you REALIZE HE’S ALLERGIC TO IT!!
8. Take child Trick or Treating for maybe 10 houses, because the costume is too freaking heavy and he can barely move his widdle tiny legs.

What Halloween costumes would you not recommend?

Happy Halloween tomorrow everyone! (I’m taking the day off to carve pumpkins). Stay safe and guard your children. Eat their candy to test for danger. Tell them it’s in their best interests. Don’t blame me if they don’t believe you.

I used to be known as quite the Halloween costume designer—and Halloween party-giver for grown-ups. I had to give up the parties when My Liege and I were forced to refinish our hardwood living room floors one year because all that dancing in high heels (those of my guests, I assure you) was not friendly to our 40-year-old wood floors and also because one of my guests BROKE MY CLARINET!! The clarinet I’d had since grade seven and proudly displayed on my fireplace mantel even though I couldn’t remember how to play it any more. After several months passed and I received confirmation that it was, um, Moi who dropped the clarinet, I decided it was time to grow up.

First up, the perfect group Halloween costume for a young family, very easy to make (if I can do it, so can you), and inspired by a lack of ANY Halloween costumes for sale in the tiny logging town where we lived at the time:

The Wrigley’s Gum Family!

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Measure family members and buy appropriate lengths of broadcloth in Juicy Fruit Yellow and Doublemint green (if can’t find shade of Doublemint green, fake it like I did). HINT: A cotton diaper works wonderfully for the baby’s costume.
2. Sew tubes to fit bodies.
3. Use felt pens and/or cut out and sew letters onto broadcloth, depending on how dark your background is. Draw very straight, and remember, if I can do it, so can you!
4. Sew on shoulder straps. HINT: If you’re breastfeeding, make sure straps attach to costume with snaps—very handy.
5. Create silver gum crowns out of cardboard and tin foil.
6. Go forth and elicit oohs and ahhs.

Second, another easy group costume:

The Three Witches of Macbeth!

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Locate two friends who’ll agree to play the Three Witches of Macbeth with you, as long as you guarantee that should a device called a Blog ever come into existence, you will not post their photos.
2. Agree that each of you will memorize your assigned parts of the “Bubble, bubble, boil and trouble” (or whatever it is) speech in the play. Provide your two fellow witches with photocopies of the scene so they have no excuse not to memorize it!
3. Have the good grace to have been born a brunette. If you’re not a brunette, dye your hair.
4. Grow hair as long as you can and get a spiral perm (Yes, you can always buy a wig, if you’re not, you know, truly committed to Halloween).
5. Spray white Halloween paint on your hair in streaks.
6. Dress as witch. HINT: If you have a huge zit on your chin, cover it up with wart makeup.
7. Include hat but forget to wear it in pictures.
8. Create witch’s brew.
9. Note that carrot in brew does NOT represent anything other than a carrot, so advise guests to get their minds out of the gutter.
10. Try as hard as you can to forgive the other two witches when they DON’T MEMORIZE THEIR LINES!!! (Agh, does no one take Halloween seriously?)
11. Repeat the three witches speech several times throughout the evening all on your lonesome.

So, what have some of your favorite Halloween costumes been?

Tomorrow – Halloween Costumes I Have Been or Created for Others to Be That Are Not Recommended.