Running With Scissors

Costume

Halloween Costume: Ewok

5:00 AM

This year was hard to decide what to make for my son's Halloween costume.

I had planned for him to be Gus Gus at 6 months right when he was born a huge fat baby.

Last year, I was excited to make him the Max wolf costume from the book: Where the Wild Things Are.

Making my kid's halloween costume is a big deal to me. I don't care if it's totally amazing, the Gus Gus was made with an old t-shirt and other scraps.

I just want to make a creative costume you wouldn't see at Walmart or find on Amazon.

But I had such a hard time this year thinking of what he would be. He's 2 1/2, so I only have a few more years of total control before the kid has an opinion on what he wants to be.

So all summer my plan was to make him a costume to be Willow.

But my husband thought no one would know he's willow and assume he's a hobbit from Lord of the Rings.

So I thought about it, and ended up going with the main Ewok from Return of the Jedi. It's actually the same actor, Warwick Davis. He played the ewok at age 11 in Star Wars, then worked with Lucas again when he made Willow. I think Warwick was 18 or something when he was Willow. Anyway, still Warwick, but not Willow.

The costume is actually a lot like the Max wolf costume. I used his zip front pajamas as the pattern and added the hood, making the belly a lighter color. The ears were sewn on the hood. I just hacked out the red hood, which seems kind of big to me. I think I'll hack some off. The hood has two slits for the ears, then snaps at the base of the hood to stay on.

I thought it was a fun little costume, but I'm not as excited about it as I was the past two years' costumes. But he does love it, and it is a fleece jumpsuit/ pajamas to keep him warm, so it's good, I just keep thinking of Willow.

Right in the beginning he grabbed this huge tree branch to put in the water. I was surprised he could lift and carry it.

I think this is the last Halloween post I have planned, so on to other projects!

I did make another Halloween costume for my niece in the summer: Hot Rod .

halloween

Happy Creepy Halloween!

11:05 PM

I won $100!!

12:50 PM

halloween

Brain Halloween Decor

1:23 AM

I wanted a brain specimen for the spooky table. I decided to make one for free rather than try to buy one. This brain is made with play dough and painted.

I made the play dough, using Vanessa's recipe here. It seemed like it was a failure as I was cooking it, all lumpy and reminded me of the goo that crawls off Layne Myer's plate in Better Off Dead. But once I kneaded it, the play dough was perfect and smooth. I don't know what I was thinking with the color, I should have just left it out and kept the dough white.

For the base I cut a circle of cardboard and covered it with tin foil.

To help support my brain, I used two egg holes from an egg carton.

After I had a brain dome, I rolled out thin snakes of dough and pressed them on in squiggles, making one half at a time to kind of create a real brain shape with the center sulcus? (anatomy was a while ago).

Once the other side was on, my brain was formed and I let it dry for a few days.

I ended up putting it on a drying rack to let the bottom dry too. I was really impressed with the homemade dough once it was dry. It held up well and didn't really even crack anywhere. I went with homemade to save money and because I was too lazy to go to the store just for play dough, and I think it worked better.

Once my brain was dry, I actually spray painted it grey with primer. Mainly because I had the weird green.

Then I used acrylic craft paint and painted the worms a fleshy pink. I didn't paint down in between the cracks on purpose, so it would kind of have contrast.

It didn't seem real or scary enough, so I watered down some red paint and just sloppily brushed a little on the top of the worms.

The finished brain.

I had looked for a dome cover at the thrift stores, but found nothing close. I ended up taking this sloped vase instead for $.50. I wrote the info on cardstock and burned the edges, acidentally burning some writing actually, oops! then just taped it on.

I chose the name of the brain from the movie Young Frankenstein.

If you've seen the movie, you probably recognized that right away. It's a Halloween classic.

Because the drying time, this little project spanned a few days, but it was fun. Obviously when I made the play dough, my little boy got his own chunk to play with while I made the brain.

Then he finger painted while I painted the brain. So a few artistic afternoons came from this brain.

I have seen brains in stores, and that would be easier obviously, and I don't know that a homemade brain looks that much better or anything, but it was pretty much free, and created little activities with the kid!

I think it's time to reveal the whole creepy table scape next.

halloween

Eye Balls and Spell Book

5:00 AM

This was super easy.

I just got a package of ping pong balls at Dollar Tree.

Then using permanent markers, drew the pupil and iris on each ball. I only had blue, I wish I'd had a brown Sharpie to give my jar variety. Then with red I drew squiggle veins.

Then I just jammed the ping ball eyes in a little mason jar, so they'd seem really pickled. I poured about half water and half white vinegar to hopefully prevent bacteria, gross growth, and a drop or two of green food coloring. I just wrapped some twine around the ring. I also thought maybe yellow food coloring would look gross too, but then I thought of urine since we've had a lot of that lately with potty training and went with green.

This was another easy one with stuff you already have probably.

I just took a big text book that was black (you could always cover one with black paper or I had planned on using a brown paper bag but found a black cover and got lazy).

If you had an old family bible that would be really cool to use.

For the pages, I used newsprint (actually the newsprint the thrift store wrapped some glassware in).

It was a big sheet, so I folded it in half and jammed it in the center of the book.

With the book closed, I could trace the size of the page without measuring anything. Then I just took the paper out and cut out the pages. So it's just one sheet with the fold in it.

Next I wrote the spells, which actually ended up being more like recipes, so I guess potions. I made the left page up but decided it would be easier to just get one online rather than try to make up another one.

So I found the recipe for Polyjuice Potion, my little ode to HP.

I wrote the potions with a fountain ink pen to look like a quill was used.

Then to further age the pages, I used the shoe polish and stipple brush to add some brown tarnish. It really showed the wrinkles in the newsprint which I liked.

To attach my pages to the text book, I opened the book to the middle, and jammed the fold in.

The I just used painter's tape on the corners to attach it to the page.