The Circus: Halloween.

Monday, November 3, 2014

Halloween.

Every year I wait for The Circus to tell me they're too old to dress up for Halloween.

Another year has passed and I haven't heard it yet.

I kind of live for Halloween.

This year The Man and I were planning on making a fire pit in the front yard and serving hot chocolate out of witch's cauldron, but as sometimes happens, plans changed and I ended up spending my Halloween driving the girls out to go trick-or-treating with their dad. By the time I got home it was 8:00.

Next year.

Plan on it.

I have a whole year to find myself a cast iron witch's cauldron, and believe me, it's going to happen.

I woke early on Halloween morning and cranked out three hours worth of makeup on The Circus and some neighbor friends before school started.

My first zipper face turned out pretty decent:

I think the trick to a good zipper face, after all my "extensive" research, is to trim the excess fabric from the ends and sides of the zipper. Use an eyeliner to trace the line of where you want the zipper to go first, then you can layout your colorwork before applying the zipper. I stuck these zippers on with a healthy amount of eyelash glue. I applied a layer on his skin, as well as a layer on the back of the zippers and gave it a few seconds to get tacky before applying it to his face. I gave him a few minutes to dry and then finished with the color blending. To keep it moist looking I wanted to use Vaseline, but couldn't find mine (ugh, kids!). I used Neosporin instead, which seemed to do the trick. I would say it's actually a really easy makeup, just a bit time consuming.

Also, I'm pretty sure I need to get myself a pair of those contacts in black.

I did a cracked Sugar Skull:

And then I went to work on my crew:

Casidee had in her mind that she wanted to be a spooky lady in gray. I was thinking of her as a phantom as we found her a gray dress and as I helped her sew her gray cloak (free pattern here), but when it came time for makeup, we just ended up dripping blood down from her eyes and adding a touch of gray lipstick.

From there she reminded me of Bloody Mary.

If you don't have gray lipstick in your Halloween makeup arsenal, I would highly suggest adding it. That stuff adds the perfect touch of detail for all dead things, and is brilliant on a zombie makeup.

Jayme chose Maleficent.

This was probably our most time consuming costume. We used this tutorial for an idea on how to conquer the horns, but The Man tapered his rings into somewhat of a cone so they fit inside each other, and didn't come out when slid together. After creating the horn shapes with poster board, he placed them on a styrofoam head (purchased from Hobby Lobby) and used paper mache to make it into a full hat piece. From there he spray painted it black and did a light outline in green to give them some definition.

Jayme made a typical tutu for her skirt piece, and I used strips of tulle along the neckline of a black t-shirt to create a high collar. We added black and purple makeup to her eyes, a bright red lipstick, and a touch of black eyeshadow to create a high cheek bone effect.

Brynn took control of her own costume 100%. She joined in with a group of her friends to be various comic book heroes. They wore t-shirts of their character and made tutus in the appropriate colors.

Brynn chose Thor:

She made an awesome hammer out of a shoe box and silver tape, but sadly, we didn't get a picture of that.

Sean was a Pedestrian Crossing Street Sign:

We bought a morph suit in black, and made a street sign diamond by layering posterboard together and taping the back to hold it. I then applied some hotglue to hold the edges on the front down. I sprayed the front with yellow spraypaint, and we outlined the edge with black electrical tape. We crossed the back with two sticks, one larger than the other, to give it support so it wouldn't flop when he held it. We attached two velcro straps to the larger piece of wood and brought it through some slits in the sign so Sean could strap it to his forearm, sort of like a shield. This made it easy for him to carry it around.

Tayler was Red Riding Hood:

We used this free pattern to sew her cape. The original plan was to just wear normal clothes underneath, but we scored at a second hand store when we found this corset dress with a lace skirt. We thread the corset with red ribbon and she was good to go.

I did red, white, and black eye makeup on her and she put on some bright red lipstick.

Cali wanted to be a peacock.

For the tail feathers I bought a cheap folding fan. I found a pack of peacock feathers for pretty cheap through Oriental Trading. It was a lot cheaper that way than through any of the craft stores. Though we did find the glittery peacock feathers at Hobby Lobby so we added those to the front layer. I glued the fan to a piece of cardboard box. I simply glued the feathers in layers to the fan. If I'd had more time I would have done a second order for more feathers to make it thicker, but I didn't have time to wait for delivery at this point. To fill it in a little more I added some blue tulle that I already had on hand to the back of it. On the backside of the cardboard box I glued some sewing elastic that we had leftover from previous tutu adventures. I cut two slits in the back of her shirt and we slid the elastic ends, making it possible to attach the elastic around her chest with safety pins, but not have the elastic visible. This way she could remove it easily if it got in her way at school. Attaching it around her chest also made it stable against her back so it didn't flop around when she walked.

We made a tutu of sorts with sewing elastic and two feather boas. I just draped them along the elastic and hot glued them into place. Then I cut the bottom loops so they hung down in individual strands from the waistband.

I gave her some blue and green eye makeup, and added some craft gems with eyelash glue.

The girls and I stopped at a little spot in the mountains on our way to meet their dad and took some pictures in their costumes. The sun was at the perfect angle to catch the rays through the sleeping trees.