Comments on: Friday Fun Thread: Trick-or-Treat!

By: catnmus

catnmus — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 20:51:16 +0000

One year I went as a bug light. Two large rings of cardboard, one over my shoulders, one around my knees, painted black. In between, several wrapping paper tubes covered in shiny purple mylar, with little fake bugs glued to them. The whole thing wrapped in a piece of screening, and a black leotard underneath. It was a great costume but I had to stand all evening!

I reused the black leotard another year, using white duct tape to make a dashed line up the middle and down the arms, and two yellow stripes along the sides. I was a highway.

In college, one of my dormmates balanced a light plastic chair on his head. Said he was “a wad of gum”.

By: CoastalChica

CoastalChica — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 18:59:27 +0000

This year my friends and I went as the crew from the Wizard of Oz. But as I can’t let anything be that easy, I went as Occupy Munchkinland complete with home-made political buttons and a shout out to Jack Layton. The Lollipop Guild was the Lollipop Union for a night and my costume was a big hit!

By: veganmarcy

veganmarcy — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 18:15:47 +0000

@oh hells nah – Please tell me you’ll do a well-endowed sock-stuff in the pants area…I love that movie and Bowie is, er, distracting in his bulging tights.

Hmmm…childhood favorites. Well as several folks said for budgetary reasons they were DIY costumes. My mom really outdid herself when I was in preschool, she made me a spot-on Strawberry Shortcake outfit from scratch and even finished it off with giant freckles courtesy of her eyeliner pencil. The hat she made was amazing, even had a little strawberry stitched on top. This was before you had free patterns online or anything online, so wow.

In 7th grade (late 80s/early ’90s, at a school very into brand names and fitting in) I made my own costume and went to junior high as a wood nymph. Not a sexy wood nymph, a wood nymph. I’ve read a lot of Narnia over the years so I think that factored in. I used temporary green dye and green sparkly colored hair gel and it took about a week to fully wash out. A really preppy guy decided to brand me “that weird green haired girl” and I spent the next two years getting taunted about it from him and his clique. This was ironic because as soon as we got to high school in the 90s it was “in” to have brightly-dyed hair, but oh well. That’s how my first (of many) hair colors was a rockin’ green.

It was funny as a college-student celebrating Halloween in Geneva during my study abroad. We went to our director’s house and his girls were dressed up, and I had a fortune teller sort of outfit on, and I saw the occasional party-going kid on the street with an outfit…but most people didn’t follow Celtic/American holidays there and they actually do their dressing up in December during the Escalade celebration. Which was fun to watch.

As for costumes that didn’t go as intended – my one and only store-bought costume. In elementary school we got to march from class to class to “visit” in our costumes. I was really obsessed with She-Ra and I went as her awesome nemesis, Cat-Ra. The outfit was noticeably cat-like and kick-ass and I felt totally awesome about being Cat-Ra for the day. However no one noticed the mask or anything else, they just saw the little She-Ra brand logo on it and said “oh you’re She-Ra”! Doh.

By: alecto

alecto — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 11:05:43 +0000

I’m French, so we don’t really do Hallowe’en, except for a couple years ten years ago when they reaaaalllyyy tried to make it happen for commercial reasons (a lot of us use it as a reason for a dress-up party, but it’s not a big cultural thing).
However, we do have Mardi Gras in March, and my mum used to make amazing costumes for me. She also used to paint kids’ faces during the school fair that always happens for Carnaval (that is the same thing as Mardi Gras).
My favourite costume evaaar was when she made me a full-body snow leopard costume. I shudder to think of the time that must have taken her, because fur is hell to sew, and I was 8 IIRC, so not small, and it was head to toe – it culminated in a hood with leopard ears on. We still have it somewhere, it was amazing.
As an adult I’ve only celebrated two Hallowe’ens, since I moved to Taiwan and it’s a bit more of a thing here. Last year I was a sixties movie spacegirl, with the plastic-y dress, super-sleek hair, etc, but no-one got it . The year before I was a lazy Sailor Jupiter – right dress, wrong accessories. Oh well.

By: BetterFishToFry

BetterFishToFry — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 05:04:41 +0000

@mishiefmanager –> She doesn’t really like any holidays that are not Christmas. She scares easily and is religious to the point where demons are a very real threat in her mind.

Soo, while I love her to death, she wasn’t always the most useful Mom. But when my school had field day and I didn’t want to go, she took me shopping instead with no qualms so it all balances out.

By: Mackey

Mackey — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 03:29:35 +0000

Halloween is not a big thing where I am.. but the thing we dressed up to every year in primary school was Book Week.
(A celebration every year that celebrates Australian books and authors, it often coincides with the Children’s Book Council annual awards for children’s books.)
My mum would make costumes for us (with us helping) – one year I went as the hungry hungry caterpiller, Anne of Green Gables, a fairy, tin man from the Wizard of Oz, and others I can’t remember.

Now that I’ve spent more time on the earth, whenever I go dressed up as something, I like to choose things that I enjoy – so I’ve dressed up as (a non sexy) schoolchild, football player, fortune cookie with fortunes, a labourer, various kind of fairies (oh how I enjoy making wings), a book, a dark elf.

By: BeckySharper

BeckySharper — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 21:43:34 +0000

@Skada: I went as Persephone one year! MamaSharper put together a toga-like outfit for me and I sewed silk flowers to it. I think that was 5th or 6th grade.

In 3rd grade I went as Laura Ingalls Wilder, in a pioneer dress with a bonnet that my mom made (it really helps to have a mother who can sew). She then took brown yarn and made two thick braids which she sewed to the sides of the bonnet so I had Laura’s pigtails (my own hair was in a blond bowl cut at the time). And then in 4th grade, I wore a Pink Panther suit made by my aunt that my older cousins had all worn.

By: Skada

Skada — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 21:26:00 +0000

I had no idea what I was going to be for Halloween, but a friend posted Take Back Halloween! on her FB, so I clicked and fell in love. It was too late to order some of the stuff you can buy to help piece together the costumes, but I used the idea of Persephone to make an Aphrodite costume. A wine-red flat bedsheet, some safety pins, and a couple sprigs of fake flowers, and I had myself a beautiful costume for about $8. Plus, I could dance in it when I went to my university's Gayla (a play on "gala") queer costume party and drag show. <3

By: Sara

Sara — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 21:19:48 +0000

When I was little, like maybe 9 or 10, I decided I was going to be into nonrepresentational costumes, although I wouldn’t have used that word to describe my idea at the time. One year, I stuck a dowel rod in a knit hat and tied a balloon to it, attached some miscellaneous colored paper and ribbons to my coat, and carried around some haphazardly chosen object – I don’t even remember what it was. People asked, “What are you?” and I said “I’m a person with a balloon on my hat carrying a [whatever-it-was].”

By: mischiefmanager

mischiefmanager — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 20:48:53 +0000

@BetterFish: Why does your mom hate Halloween?

Perhaps I’ll just punt and celebrate this instead: http://jesusween.com/