A green costume

OK, internets, I need your assistance.

Dan and I have been invited to a Springoween party - that is, a costume party in the middle of the spring. And the theme? Green. As in, reduce, reuse, recycle. The evite says:

"This is, of course, an interpretive theme so crack open those brains and scramble that sucker 'til it fits. Reduce a sheet to strips and come as a mummy. Reuse a costume or costumes pieced together from Halloweens passed. Recycle someone else's costume from Halloweens passed. (Cross-dressing is welcome, as always.) Recycle a costume idea not yet suited to another themed party. (Um yeah, that's a convenient loophole to let in new costumes.) Hell, come as an aluminum can or a compost heap, just Reduce, Reuse and/or Recycle. Just be prepared to explain which. "

So, I had a few ideas for costumes. We've got lots of leftover costume pieces from Halloweens (and other costume events) past. And I like the idea of going with something both green (recycled/reused) and green (the color). Here were my thoughts:

Option A: Green Fairy (see: absinthe, Moulin Rouge) I have bits and pieces that could make this work, since I tried to do something similar for Halloween back in...2002? I could make wings out of coat hangers and old holey green tights, and I could carry a flask with absinthe in it. Or make a wand. I'm picturing tattered, fractured. Pros: I've got everything I need for it. Con: I'd still need to do some work (making wings, figuring out top part of costume, etc.) to make it happen.

Option B: What better way to recycle a costume than to wear my wedding dress again? It's got green on it, and I can't imagine when I'd ever be able to wear it again for anything. I've still got my shoes and my necklace. And hell, I could still make those wings. Pros: I get to wear my wedding dress again! Cons: It's kind of heavy and less open to interpretation, costume wise.

Option C: I do something entirely different that doesn't involve the color green at all.

So, internet, what should I wear to Springoween? Any ideas I haven't thought of?

Pumpkins scream in the dead of night

Somehow we got invited to two different Halloween parties this year; one a huge event that was attended by hundreds of people at a Masonic temple, and one that was a house party with a theme of The Future.

The first party was last weekend, and we dressed up in the same costumes we had from my birthday party back in March: the Mad Hatter and the March Hare. Sadly, the party wasn't as fun as I'd hoped. The most entertaining thing about it was looking at everyone else's costumes. It was an alcohol-free event, which wasn't so much a problem as there also wasn't much to do other than stare at everyone else. There were some pagan rituals and a band played for a little while and some booths were set up in one place where you could buy standard Ren Faire crap. I was impressed with quite a few of the costumes, and there were about 5 other Mad Hatters there. Plus, we found an Alice.

The second party was on Saturday night. We spent some time at the thrift store, got some fabric, some yarn, and some other supplies, and I knitted Dan a cunning hat and sewed myself up a costume. Then, on Saturday, I spent a couple of hours preparing my hair, since I knew the only way I could get curls to stay for more than a few minutes would be zulu knots, something I hadn't done in years.





Dan made a stencil and painted himself up a Blue Sun tshirt.

I sewed a dress quite a bit like the ones I made for the bridesmaids in our wedding, only I made a long, a-line skirt. My hair was up and curly, I invested in some fake eyelashes and liquid eyeliner, and we went off to the party as Inara Serra and Jayne Cobb from Firefly.

This party was, in a word, awesome. The hosts had spend over a month decorating the entire downstairs of the house, each room in a different theme: the 1950s silver and lights, the post-apocalyptic, when nature takes back over, the mad scientist, the bat room, and (my favorite) the 2001 room, complete with Hal and a monolith in the middle and an animatronic Elvis. Everyone who attended was be-costumed, and there were some mighty impressive ones. The hosts were characters from Alien. Our friends who had invited us dressed as characters from From Dusk Till Dawn. There was a Miss Galaxie 1959, a Buy N Large citizen from Wall-E, Dr. Who, some Terminators, and Dan and I even found some Two By Two Hands of Blue from the same show as our costumes. We had so much fun, especially since all the attendees had made a concerted effort to not only dress up but think of something that went with the theme of the party. Also, the hosts are artists and photographers, and they had a photography studio set up in their basement to take photos of all the attendees. You can see the full set here.









A good time was had by all.

Memories of Halloween Past, Part 2

This week brings a plethora of birthday celebrations, as three of my friends celebrate natal days in this week and my mom's birthday is today. Dan and I had flowers sent to her at school in honor of her big day. I'd hoped to be able to fly out there for a visit, but a) we've spent a ton of dough on trips to CA in the past year and change, and b) I've spent the last five weeks traveling so I'd kind of like to stay at home, and c) I only get to see Dan on the weekends so had I gone out I would have gone two weeks without seeing him, essentially. I realize it's kind of silly considering the first year and a half of our relationship we lived in 2 different STATES and saw each other maybe once a month, but in the past several years have living together I've grown accustomed to seeing him all the time.



A blog that I read sometimes had a contest earlier this month for people to send in stories and/or photos of the best or most memorable costumes they've ever had. I didn't see the post in time to send anything (and I couldn't top the winner anyhow) but it got me thinking about costumes I've worn.

When I was little, my mom made my Halloween costume every year. I was a tomato plant, a princess, a clown. One year I don't remember what I wore but my sister went as a flower in a flower pot (an old lampshade frame covered in brown fabric was the pot) and she won the fire station's costume contest for her age group. Her prize was a My Little Pony puzzle, and I was So Jealous.

As I got older, my costume ideas got more unusual. In the fifth grade I decided to make my own costume - I was "Over the Rainbow" and drew the Oz characters on a mortar board, wore the most colorful and stripiest clothing I could find, and constructed a rainbow-shaped cardboard hat, painted like the rainbow. I think my dad helped by drawing some birds on cardboard that I cut out and attached to the top.

Unfortunately, the only photographic evidence of this costume that exists is in my fifth grade yearbook. And it's a b&w photo. Maybe someday I'll scan it.



In sixth grade, I decided to be Mac Tonight. Not Mac the Knife. Mac Tonight, from the McDonalds commercials with the guy playing the piano who had a moon head. My mom helped make the moon head, and surprisingly, a few people knew who I was. I was a gypsy, a spider, Scarlett O'Hara. In college, my costumes were mostly put together at the last minute and involved lots of makeup. I never did the sexy/slutty thing, though.

Then, in December of 2000, I saw the movie The Nightmare Before Christmas on a big screen re-release. I loved it. I loved Sally in particular. Then and there I decided to grow my hair out so I could be Sally for Halloween of 2001 - and I did! I rented the movie a few times so I could get it just right; I sewed that costume by hand, painted my face blue, dyed my hair red. It was a great costume. Since then, my costumes have been, for the most part, not as exciting. Dan and I dressed as Lucy and Charlie Brown my first Halloween in Colorado, Dan even going so far as to shave his head (save one lock over the forehead). Since then, I've been out of town for work most Halloweens so I haven't gotten much into costuming, save two years ago when I made Dan a Max from Where the Wild Things Are costume and I went as Pippi Longstocking (henna'ing my hair again).



I love costumes, and I love to dress up. The Dorothy costume this year was hand-sewn for my 23rd birthday party (a costume party, natch) and the only new part was the ruby slippers. I think they turned out pretty well, though if I ever intend to wear this costume again I should really get a different blouse. Dorothy-Busting-Out is not the best look.



The question is what Dan and I will do tonight, and tomorrow night. We have a lot of options but haven't made any decisions about what we will do. There are concerts, parties, pillow fights, and there is a slight possibility we'll get a few trick-or-treaters, though when they don't wear costumes I just get kind of pissed off. Because if I'm 29 freaking years old and dressed as Dorothy and you want me to give you some candy, you're going to have to do better than Crazy Normal Looking Kid Wearing Regular Clothes. I mean, even Adam Sandler was more creative than that.

(Most photos were taken on Sunday after we attended the Obama rally. Dan's got photos he took at the rally here.)