DIY: Halloween Costume, 2012

Halloween this year was unexpectedly awesome. Par for the course, I waited til the very last minute to *suddenly realize* that I didn't have a costume, and made a half-hearted attempt to visit Rag-O-Rama in Little Five to find something. I went there because my co-worker showed me a picture of a bacon costume that caught my eye. (The bacon dress worked better in theory.)

After deciding I wanted to be neither bacon nor a sexy pilot/ referee/ pirate, ad nauseam, I decided to create my own costume. Cue the gasps and cringes of horror that come with most homemade attempts.

Except mine kinda rocked. I was quite surprised. I was inspired by a vid I saw of a guy draped head-to-toe in plastic grocery bags (he was making some kind of environmental statement), and that got me thinking about of doing something similar.

So my costume is a gown I made out of plastic grocery bags. I was not a particular character; I just put on a blue wig to finish the look off. And a candy necklace. Really, I was just flabbergasted that we had enough plastic bags lying around the house for me to make a flippin dress out of!

I rocked my costume at a couple of events; pictured above and below is at the Little Five Points Halloween Parade & Festival. Costumes, music, fried food (yum!), stilts, dogs, things for sale, meeting up with friends... this neighborhood was filled to the gills with fun that day. I'm pictured with my best friend J in the pic above.

Everyone loved my costume. It actually turned me into a mini-celebrity; every few steps, someone said they loved it, asked to take a picture of me, asked to take a picture with me, ran to get their friend/mom/whoever so they could take a picture with me, asked how long it took me to make the dress, if it was really grocery bags, if I was dressed as Nicki Minaj or Lady Gaga, christened me Kroger Girl and Kroger Queen ... One woman even said she worked in couture and like the seams I made on the dress. (I def appreciated that compliment.) Yep, got my boobies felt up by a giant skeleton. Cheeky bugger.

This little sign on my cape was an attempt to continue the environmental message that I saw in the vid. Speaking for myself, I'm trying to be better about remembering my canvas bags when I grocery shop, and I figured this creative costume might help illustrate the message for all of us. Every effort counts, yeah?

Case closed! My friend C and I found Waldo, everyone can stop looking now. :)