Another DIY Halloween

Another Halloween, another round of thrifting and/or DIY'ing (from second-hand materials!) my costume. Even with COVID this year, I figured there would be an opportunity for some festivity, and Halloween did not disappoint! For work, I was able to dress up for a virtual happy hour with one group of colleagues, and a virtual team trivia event for another. And for the weekend, Tatiana and I swapped our usual late night people-watching for an outdoor coffee.

In August, I teased you with this arrival from Poshmark. 

And in September, I hinted at more to come, with Toby guarding this stash of second hand fabric, I acquired from Value Village. 

Straight to the punchline, I went as the famous palindrome meme: Tacocat! Pairing a super cozy kitty onesie with a DIY taco cover, this costume is warm enough for a chilly northwest October.

 

Now the how-to: Starting with a pair of red place mats, I painted some details with acrylic paint and fabric medium, then cut out the desired half-circle shape to create a couple slices of tomato.

This pic shows a few steps: I cut the yellow felt into a large enough circle to wrap around me, creating the taco shell, and sponge painted some brown and lighter yellow spots, for a toasted corn tortilla texture. I cut a smaller circle out of the top center, creating a arm hole. Next, to create the "lettuce", I sewed the ruffled border of a green tablecloth around the perimeter. A loop of lettuce creates a shoulder strap for my other shoulder. Pictured here are some adhesives and velcro strips; the velcro was great for fitting the costume, but ultimately not strong enough for a costume I wanted to be able to sit and stand in. I replaced the velcro strips with ribbons.

Next, secure the tomato slices to one side of the taco shell, sewing the slices right behind the lettuce.

Use velcro or ribbons to fasten the other side of the tomatoes to the other side of the shell.

Put the final look together, and... tacocat! First pic is me in costume, followed by the a version of the meme. Nailed it!

 

Not only is it a ton of fun to put these costumes together, but it also saves $$$ and new materials from one-time use. This pre-fab taco costume was found at Target for $30, while the second-hand fabrics were just $8 at Value Village. The cat onesie ran $25 new at Target last year, and cost $9 like new at Poshmark.

 

Total cost: $17

Compare at: $55 new

And, did I mention the cat onesie has pockets? It may become my winter go-to outfit!

 

 

 

Planning for Halloween... with Poshmark!

Each year, I start planning for Halloween well ahead of time. If I'm going to thrift and DIY the bulk of the costume, I need some lead time to scour online and in-person thrift stores. This year it's a little harder to get excited about Halloween. I almost positively won't be in the office, and am still unsure if there will be any evening festivities. Finally, I convinced myself it doesn't matter. There are enough video calls for me to still enjoy dressing up, and I can always just spend the day photo-bombing T.

I settled on an idea, and 30 minutes later... success! I placed my first ever order on Poshmark and crossed my fingers. Poshmark is a different model than threadUP. Where threadUP is consignment and they manage the sale and shipping out the items, Poshmark is more of a marketplace or platform where you can sell items directly (the seller manages the sale and the shipment themselves). There's pros and cons to each model. In the marketplace model, more money will go to the seller.

I lucked out, and this first experience was fantastic. The seller even re-used a shipping box!

A sneak peek. This is the only hint you're getting at this time. You'll need to wait for Halloween for the full reveal. The item was in awesome condition - as noted by the seller, she had only worn it once before, possibly for a costume party herself?

A win-win for both of us, I only paid $9 for somethings that retails at $25 new, and the seller recouped some funds from something that was just going to take up space in her closet. And the planet wins, because we get multiple uses out of a novelty item. 

And after Halloween, if I decide I'm done? Poshmark provides me an easy link to relist (Reposh) the item.

What are ways you keep one-time use items moving to new people to enjoy?

Fabulous Fail

Sometimes, your best thrifted DIY intentions fail you. After two months of frugal, patient shopping, crafting, painting, sewing, and jewelry-making, my Halloween costume was a huge flop.

Literally. After a couple wrong cuts, the top of my dress lost all structure and became floppy.

So, all of a sudden, I'm a day away away from Halloween, and no costume, and I still want to keep my two priorities:

1) Save $$.
2) Reused, recycled, or borrowed.

Thank goodness, Goodwill came to the rescue. I'll follow with a picture of the final product after Halloween, but I've decided to go as punk Eleven from Stranger Things. That's her in the middle:

(Image borrowed, copyright Netflix)

The good news is these are pretty normal clothes, so I only needed two items: white sneakers (how do I not have these?) and an over-sized black coat.

Here's what I scored. Like-new Nikes, a deal at $15. That logo's from the '70s, so someone had them stashed in a closet for a very long time. They fit great, so I'll incorporate them into my weekend wardrobe.

This wool blazer. New with tags, that shows it would have been $175! Now I got it over-sized, but it turns out it's exactly the right size for T. Not only did I get a screaming deal for $20, but T will get to incorporate it into his regular wardrobe.

$35 for a Halloween costume, where we can reuse everything? That's a Halloween Treat.

A DIY Halloween

A few weeks ago I wrote about starting my Ursula costume that I've been dreaming of DIY-ing for a while. Starting with just a black dress and a purple cape from thrift stores, it was time to get down to work.

Step 1: cut the skirt of the dress up to the thighs (however risque you want to go) into 8 strips. These will become your tentacles. Cut the cape into 8 long triangles, a few inches longer than the skirt strips, but tapering to a point.

Lay the purple fabric, back side up, on top of each strip of the skirt, pin in place, and sew such that the tentacle point and sides are sewn shut, and there is an opening at the top of each. There will be extra black fabric from each strip: don't trim this, when we flip the tentacles right side out, this will be part of the stuffing.

 

 Don't forget to have a little four-legged friend observe your work:

 

 Flip the each skirt strip right-side out. The seams will now be on the inside, and the shiny side out.

 

Now prepare some paint so we can add "suction cups" to the tentacles. I happen to have a bunch of craft paint laying around. If you don't, check out thrift stores that are focused on craft supplies like ReCreative.  I like add some fabric medium, which makes the paint a little less crunchy. An old deli container makes a perfect mixing tub.

 

To stamp on the suction cups, no special tools are needed. The top of an old shampoo bottle makes easy circles. 

 

Steps not pictured: to fill out each tentacle and also make them bendable, I stuffed them with the filling from an old pillow (free!) and some 1/8" armature wire. Once stuffed, I sewed each tentacle shut, using the couple extra inches of purple fabric to cover the filling. 

For finishing touches, I purchased a long sleeve purplish shirt ($7.99 at Goodwill), painted a shell gold and strung it from a necklace, and made myself up with bold eyes, red lips, and white hair gel. 

 

And voila! The sea witch goes on to party. :)

 

On Halloween, my co-workers wanted to dress up as Star Trek characters at work, but I couldn't let all the above crafting go to waste. One more piece, and I can be a sea-witch/alien mashup! I purchased this purple sweater (also Goodwill, $7.99), cut the collar off of it, and sewed on a purple dress belt as trim.

 

Not counting the purple tights, which wouldn't be included with other commercial costumes, here's the breakdown. 

Dress, $10, thrifted

Cape, $10, thrifted

Wire, $13.35, new (will reuse)

Purple top, $7.99, thrifted

Total: $41.24

A 50-70% savings over packaged costumes!

Halloween is just 3 weeks away!

And with that, I realized that Thoughtful Consumer is 1 year old!! Thank you all for joining me on this ride, and reading the last 57 posts. :)

Every year around this time, I start creating my Halloween costume. Let's be honest, I've been thinking about it for months, but now it's time to get down to work.

I've never been into just picking one of those bagged costumes at a store. I find they usually run small, are poorly made, and cost a lot of money, making me pretty sad when I get home and half of my $59.99 costume sortof fits. Also, you're ending up with a costume that many other people will be wearing.

Last year, I wrote about swaps, which is one great way to mix up your routine. For free, you can mix and match pre-owned items from your friends to create a unique costume.

This year, I'm finally going for a costume that I've had in mind for a few years: Ursula from The Little Mermaid.

This store-bought costume is $89.99 and has no tentacles. :-/

This one is $129.99 and has tentacles, but I think I can do better for less. 

Both of the above are 100% new polyester. I think I can get away with a spending a loss less, and using recycled materials. When you have a specific idea in mind, thrifting + alterations can often be more targeted than swaps.

I'm starting with a $10 black evening gown that I bought from swap.com, an online second-hand store.

This dress is a little loose in the waist and tight in the hips, but no worries, because there are many alterations needed. (It also helps that T said "wow!" before taking this picture. :) It's a good departure from my usual jeans and tee.)

I bought a lavender cape for $10 at Lifelong Thrift that I will use for the lining/underside of the tentacles. Finally, I did buy some new sculptural wire from Amazon ($13.35) that I will use inside the tentacles to shape them. After wearing the costume, I'll pull the wire out for another costume or art project.

I have a long way to go taking these materials into a finished costume. In addition to a fun DIY project, I'll end up with a unique costume, and $90 in savings.

I'll be sure to post a step-by-step and finished pics closer to Halloween. Now friends, have fun at your own swaps and thrifting - can't wait to see what you come up with for costumes!

Halloween is just around the corner!

I've always loved Halloween. Between all the theater I did in my younger years, followed by several projects as a body painter, I enjoy the one time a year it's acceptable to dress all wacky and possibly do some wild face painting. :)

Now, if you're anything like my group of friends, you only wear a costume once, looking forward to creating something new each year. Before you know it, you have a closet full of practically new costumes just taking up space.

So last year, in a burst of "I want to be able to use this closet again," I gathered up all the costumes I didn't envision re-purposing. (I kept the fairy wings, because seriously, what photographer and painter doesn't need a set of those handy?) Then, came the swap party.

There are only a couple guidelines for a swap: each of your guests should bring any pieces they are willing to part with. All pieces go onto the table and you can either do a free-for-all or take turns selecting items you want to bring home with you. Any leftovers get donated to the local thrift shop.

(The whole swap idea came from a dear friend Stacy, who has arranged swaps for regular clothes. She donates the remaining clothes to Dress For Success.)

Results: I scored this amazing chicken hat and beak. My friends each brought home 1 or 2 items, and we donated a large grocery sack of items. And most importantly, I re-gained a closet. :)

Savings: about $20

Funny time with friends: Priceless