Once Upon a Time on Halloween...

 I am back with more ridiculousness! 

I had this wild idea. The idea was loosely inspired by a video I saw by Rachel Maksy. If you aren't familiar with her, she has a YouTube channel dedicated to vintage style and cosplay (with a few other random goodies thrown in from time to time as well). I have been obsessed with watching her for the past few months and she makes me want to MAKE ALL THE THINGS! Because of her, I have actually procured a sewing machine, and for the first time since my college costuming and makeup class, I am attempting to really learn how to sew. I'm pretty good at Frankensteining things together, and I can do simple things like sew on a button or mend a rip, etc...but full on sewing is something kind of foreign to me.

Anywho...I'm getting ahead of myself. I saw this video of Rachel's- https://youtu.be/uCX9nMaZ7xM

In it she makes a costume that features a large, wearable jack-o-lantern head made out of paper mache. Immediately, I knew I had to make something like that. However, I didn't want to just copy what she had done, so I decided to make my own ridiculous paper mache head abomination. I got to brainstorming, and this is what I came up with:

It is a very rough sketch, but I had this image of a giant crescent moon for a head, with some sort of cape/leotard combo. I'm not sure exactly where the idea came from, but I think I like it because it reminds me of vintage Halloween decorations mixed with a little bit of court jester.

Once I had a rough idea of what I wanted it to look like. I set about getting it all together. I cut out two crescent moon shapes out of card board, then attached them at the tips with hot glue. I used a strip of cardboard in between the sides to keep them apart, and closed the front gap with masking tape. The tape didn't hold very well though, so I ended up scrapping that idea and using packing tape instead. Here's my 4 year old modeling it for me:

Then I began the task of covering the whole thing with layers of paper mache. To bulk up the facial features I used paper mache pulp- it's basically the same thing as regular paper mache, except it's in a mushy/crumbly form instead of strips. This stuff took forever to dry, but once it did, I covered it in a layer of regular paper mache strips. 

Once the first layer was dry, I cut a hole in the mouth region, which is actually for practical purposes my eye holes so I can (sort of) see where I'm going while wearing this thing. I realized how out of practice I am with paper mache. It's not smooth at all, and if I had more time I could have fixed that, but Halloween fast approaches and this thing needed to get done. Since paper mache takes so long to dry (especially in this rainy, cold weather we have been having here lately), I really couldn't futz with it anymore and just had to move on to the next phase- painting.

Despite how wrinkly and undefined the features turned out to be, I do like how it turned out once all painted. It has a very home-made look to it, which I really don't mind. I don't know why, but that sort of adds a creepy quality to it. I wasn't intending for it to turn out creepy, but I don't really mind that it did. It is for Halloween after all.

The hardest part for me though was next- the sewing. Since I am a very inexperienced seamstress, I decided to do something rather simple- just a simple, waist-length cape. I ventured to the fabric store with the intent to buy something sort of starry/sparkly in keeping with the celestial, moon theme, but I found this absolutely gorgeous maroon and silver harlequin material and I had to have it.

I wish my camera did a better job of picking up how sparkly and iridescent this fabric is because in person it is positively magical. And it was 40% off! If I had to pay full price for it, it would have been beyond my budget for this project, but I lucked out.

Once again borrowing from Rachel Maksy, I used her idea of using a basic circle skirt pattern as the basis for the cape. I think it turned out well considering it was my first sewing project in about 20 years. I did run out of time though and I wasn't able to hem the bottom- but I will get to that eventually. Perhaps before the next time I want to wear this.

I did make the top opening a little too big, but since this is meant to be a costume and not something for everyday wear I don't think it's that big of a deal.

Here is the whole thing put together:

So far it has been a hit at my office today, and with the handful of people who have seen it in person. My children are terrified of it- I don't know if that is a win or a failure but at least it elicits a reaction. Overall, I'm rather proud of it. I used to put a lot of work into my Halloween costumes, even despite not being very good at sewing, but over the years I sort of got lazy with it. This really renewed my love of putting together a great costume and reminded me that Halloween is the perfect opportunity to be as creative as you can be. You want to have a big moon-head? Go for it.