Trick or Treat, Baby

Trick or treat
Smell my feet
Give me something
Good to eat!

It's the most wonderful time of the year
With the kids all in costumes
And everyone telling you, "Be of good cheer!"
It's the most wonderful time of the year
It's the spook-spookiest season of Fall
With those Halloween greetings and prank-planning meetings
When friends come to call
It's the spook-spookiest season of Fall
There'll be parties for hosting
Marshmallows for toasting
And trick-or-treating in snow
There'll be scary ghost stories
And tales of the glories of
Halloweens long, long ago....

Dilapidated & neglected
works for this look

I love Halloween! I look forward to Halloween the way people look forward to Christmas (which I also love.) Maybe you didn't know that about me. Now you do. I decorate the house. I've thrown parties. I always pass out candy.


Laboratory Specimans

I think dressing up is such fun. How awesome is it to temporarily adopt a completely different persona?

When I was a kid, I can remember the store-bought costumes with the scratchy plastic masks. And they were cool. I also remember designing a few of our own....I remember being a dancer (I'd say ballerina, but I didn't have a tutu. I think it was a jazz dance outfit. It had fringe.) I was a hillbilly with a straw hat & overalls with exaggerated freckles painted on my cheeks. I was a baby with pigtails in my Dr. Dentons. I was a construction worker in coveralls & a hardhat that my dad brought home from work. I was a Valley Girl. Once, in high school, I even dressed as my brother.

Silky & a pregnant Claus

As an adult I can recall having been a flapper, a witch, a vampire, a mime, a seniorita, a popcorn & peanuts vendor, 'the life of the party', a scarecrow, an Asian rice paddy farmer, Elvira, Medusa, Isis, Miss Piggy, Mrs. Claus, & a severed head on a silver platter.

My husband enjoys it too. When his work schedule has allowed him to join us in the festivities, he's been Twinkie the Kid, Shazam, a fat stripper, Silky the pimp, a French Maid....He said there's nothing scarier than him in drag.


Peace-lovin'
Hippy Chick

My children are such fun to dress too. My oldest has been a flower, a lion, Dora the Explorer, a bride, a devil, a vampiress, Wonder Woman, Cleopatra, a Viking, & a ghoul. The little one was Boots (from Dora), Cinderella, an angel, a witch, Supergirl, princess on a unicorn, a medieval princess, & a hippy. I made (or put together) most of the costumes myself or with my mother's help. I actually really enjoy it even though I can't sew & there are kinks to work out. The year they were the devil & angel, their horns & halo were battery illuminated. It was way cool.

All hail the Queen

I'm not sure what we're doing this year. I have ideas. I'm such a freak, I keep a running draft of ideas in my computer. I have a way-cool idea that I know I can execute, but I'm not sure how comfortable I'd be & I like to be comfortable. I have another couple too...depends.

My husband isn't so fond of the 'couples costumes' but I have a good idea for one. I have several, but there's only one I think he might be willing to do. There's always that speed bump in the road. The man has not shared his ideas yet.

The Halloween party that we've been attending the last few years is outside with a bonfire, so weather has to be considered. Costumes that can be worn with coats or with layers are the best options. Sometimes it's downright cold in Ohio at the end of October!



Fairytale Princess

The little girl thinks she might want to be a gothic bride, a corpse bride but not The Corpse Bride. It's the first year she's ever expressed a wish to be something scary-ish. 

I hope it isn't too complicated & I hope not too expensive. You see, that is part of the overall challenge. I like to be original. I like to have fun with it. I hope to do a good job. But I also like to try to do it better & cheaper than I could buy it...some gibberish about being more than the sum of its parts. I don't know where this has come from, but as crazy as it makes me, I look forward to it too.

I've come to drink your blood.

Even when I buy a costume, I have to modify it, convert it, alter it in some way. Somehow, it's never good enough the way it comes. At $29.99 & up yet it's always missing that perfect finishing touch.

If I can reuse, recycle, or thrift store it, I'm in Heaven. I have a big Rubbermaid bin in the basement full of costume parts. I recently did clear out the childrens' items that would be too small from here on, but capes are forever. The accessories are one size fits all.

Gorgontastic!

And my big girl...she's expressed an interest in being Medusa this year, & I just so happen to have my nearly 20 year old, 10 pound Medusa wig that my mother crafted in that bin in the basement. (30+ rubber snakes get heavy on your head!) I'll have to fashion a dress or toga of some sort, but that's part of the fun. Taking the old & updating, converting, refiguring....& probably, in this case, rewiring....I do wonder whether the kids in her class will know who she is. None of them knew who Cleopatra was, but maybe they will since Clash of the Titans was remade in the last year. It was a fun costume. I'm sure she will enjoy wearing it. Unless she changes her mind again by then.

2 weeks ago she wanted to be a werewolf.