Halloweenie

Dear Shayne,
Whew! No posts lately, and you'll soon see why -- I've been Halloween costuming up the wazoo. Last week, Bill and I went to a Halloween party with a "Post-apocalyptic World" theme. I was a bit stumped, so put the idea out to a few co-workers for some brain-storming. Almost immediately, someone said, "Twinkies!" Sure -- 'cause they're going to last forever, right? Love it! That led me to think of cockroaches. Soooo... I was a Twinkie and Bill was a cockroach!

I am particularly proud of the antennae on this costume -- I think they came out really well. I was initially going to put them on a headband, but Bill shaves his head and I thought that would look goofy. So he suggested a hood -- we had this brown sweatshirt, so I attached them to that. They really came out even better than I expected... in fact, I had some roach-y dreams that night after working on this. Blech.

The extra legs aren't that great (Bill is a champ for sticking out his arms in this photo in a way that shows them off) but both of these costumes were whipped up the night before the party. Sooo... stuffed pantyhose it was.

For the Twinkie costume, I went with quick and dirty (to tell the truth, this is generally my preferred Halloween costume methodology -- I like costumes that are my basic "uniform" [long skirt + long shirt] dressed up to look like something else. I also rarely do makeup and pretty much never do wigs).

All yellow with white spots where they inject the Twinkies with filling. I had a suggestion to wear a cowboy hat for the "Twinkie the Kid" look, but... is that guy still around? At any rate, I'm not sure that the Kid will survive the apocalypse... he always seemed a little wimpy to me. But those non-baked baked goods? Oh, yeah.

The best part about this costume is that I had everything on hand -- the yellow sweatshirt is a print sweatshirt turned inside out, and the yellow skirt and chucks were straight out of my closet. I had the fleece to cut up and sew into "filling." Mmm... Twinkies.

The only thing we had to buy were brown pants for Bill (which he can hold onto until he's 70 and wear them again!) and the pantyhose for the roach legs. Sweet!

Whew! That must be it, right?

Au contraire, my friend!

That was just last week's party. That doesn't include the crazy Halloween party craziness (I know I said crazy twice -- it's really crazy!) that takes place where I work.

A bit of backstory (cause hey, I never shut up) first: a few years back, the theme was "Haunted Hollywood." At the last minute (notice a personal theme there?) I decided to wear my hockey gear and go as Wayne Gretzky -- you know, when he played for the LA Kings? LA? Hollywood? Yeah, it was a stretch, but I had everything on hand and just had to use duct tape to write "Gretzky" and "99" on my back. So I wore my skates all day. And it was super fun! I looooved skating around the office.

The next year, I decided I wanted to be "wheeled" again. So I went as my car. You can read about it on my very first ever post on craftster here (Awww... memories...). The next year (last year), I decided to go as "Hell on Wheels." I don't seem to have a photo of that one, but I wore a black dress with flames all around the skirt and made an iron-on transfer of Rodin's The Gates of Hell for my shirt. And skates. Of course.

Soooo... this year, skates again. Debate, debate, debate. Waffle, waffle, waffle. Many good ideas were bandied about, but nothing that got me really excited. The Saturday before Halloween, I was grilling Bill for ideas (what a champ that guy is) and he came up with "rolling pin" (dress as a pin, wear the skates, done). I couldn't decide between a bowling pin or a sewing pin and neither of them seemed easy to me. So we kept brainstorming with the word "roll" -- rolling stones, rolling hills [heh. heh.], steam roller, etc. At some point, I said, "High roller!" (dress like a stoner, wear the skates...) Bill's answer to this was: "Holy Roller." YES!

There was much debate between a nun costume or an angel costume (even just having holes in my clothes, but that seemed weak). In the end, I decided that angels=holy more than nuns. Also, I wanted to make some kick-ass angel wings.

So I did.

These babies kicked ass. Seriously. They're 30" tall and totally rock. Everyone asked where I bought them -- just the compliment you want when you make something, right?

I also managed to make them comfortable to wear and easily removable, although I wore them all day. Unfortunately, I don't have a photo of the whole outfit, but I made a long white tunic to go with the wings and halo I made.

I'm such a nerd -- that halo looks like Christmas tree garland, doesn't it? Nope. It's eyelash yarn that I knit into an i-cord and then ran wire through. Right. I knit my own halo. Hahaha.

So that's what I've been busy doing. Oh, yeah -- and I finished that ATC swap, so there are photos coming of that.

The bathroom? Hahaha. Right. Not so much. How's yours?

love,
kelly