Halloween

Ok, the original costume idea went out the window while I focused on a couples costume for me and Robb- he was a beekeeper and I was a bee. I also 'remixed' my old showgirl costume for Monday's Halloween costumed CrossFit workout. I've wanted to wear corpse paint (the black and white face paint) for a number of Halloweens now, and I finally got my chance as a Black Metal Showgirl. Here I'm lifting sans feather fan, wig and headpiece.



Here's a photo with those things:



Wicked, right? I had also planned on wearing this to race in, but the morning of it was just way too hard to get up and drive two hours.

But back to the bees! Here are some process shots of the costumes, Robb's beekeeper costume first:

I made a bee smoker out of cardboard and some canvas I had left over from oil painting.



Here the green clips hold the canvas on while the glue dries. (Halloween is the worst time to misplace your hot glue gun)



Amazon provided a great, cheap Safari style straw hat that I spray painted white.



I made some bees from pipe cleaner, following and tweaking a tutorial I found. I took short sections of white tulle and wedged it between the coils for the bee wings (one of my more genius time-saving ideas).



Robb bought a suit you'd use to paint or clean, and voila! Bee keeper for probably under $30, including spray paint and all materials.



We went on a ride, the Pumpkin Pedaler, and there were several other bees there. There was a bevy of bees.



I taped off and painted a cheap yellow silk shirt I found at TJ Maxx.





I made wings from coat hangers around the house and cheap pantyhose in a coffee color- perfect! I had a specific (and anatomically correct) pattern in mind, so I drew it in Sharpie on a piece of paper. That way, I could flip over the paper and trace both wings with fabric paint (or 'puffy paint', as my mom and I used to call it).



I had no idea how to attach these suckers. I wound up winding yarn around the top and bottom pieces, and using electrical tape to secure one side to the other by matching up the curved 'hanger' part of the hanger.





I liked the angle these wound up at. I added a cutesy bow for full cutesy points.



Shoes? No ordinary shoes.



Voila! Bee shoes. The black bow they came with happened to work perfectly to tie a pom pom on.



Not pictured- I bought a cheesy springy bat headband, cut the bats off to make them more antennae-like and added a yellow bow to that as well. I also wore a wig and false eyelashes because you can! You can do these things on Halloween! And that's part of the reason why it's such an amazing holiday. Le sigh. Why can't there be like four Halloweens per year?