MAXIMUS.

As seems to be tradition, here is a Halloween post almost 2 months after the fact.  I wasn't sure if I was going to have the time or money to make myself a costume this year, so I didn't start planning one until about a week in advance.  My friend Charli was giving me a bunch of ideas, and she mentioned the 'sassy horse' from Tangled.  Tangled is one of my favorite movies and I decided that 'sassy horse' would be a wonderful costume.

I looked up some reference images of Maximus and did a couple of very rough sketches of the costume, and how it would work.  I look very happy in sketch form.

I built the base of the head out of foam.

And then covered it in felt, made the 'harness' part out of fun foam and found some ping pong balls for the eyes.

So sassy.

The front of the body was made out of white felt and then fun foam for the saddle straps.

I painted all of the embellishments gold.

The saddle was actually the first part of the costume that I made.  I had Murder She Wrote on in the background, which made working on it even more fun!  I made the blanket under the saddle out of felt and then the saddle itself out of fun foam.

I gave Maximus a glorious and luxurious yarn mane.

And painted his eyes.

It was very important that I have a wanted sign for Flynn Rider.

And a little Pascal to keep me company.

I wore it to work and put on my best Maximus face.

It was probably the easiest costume I've worn at work seeing as how it didn't have enormous wings or as 3 foot tall head.  People seemed to enjoy it, even when they didn't know exactly who I was.  I'm pretty sure that a lot of the older customers thought that I was just a very disgruntled horse.

My manager really enjoyed it and whinnied at me throughout the day.

Another Late Halloween Post

My Halloween posts always seem to happen in December...Anyways, for Halloween this year I decided to dress up as the Robot Unicorn from the incredibly addicting internet game Robot Unicorn Attack. I get a little competitive when it comes to my costume contest at work, so I went all out.

I used thin cardboard to make the basic structure for the head.

And then I gradually covered it in white fun foam.

I put tiny led lights in the eyes to make them glow.

I made a fun foam vest with Velcro straps and a detachable tail that I painted in rainbow colors.  I also used a light purple color to add accents to the body and the head.

I wore white pants, a white shirt and white shoes.  I had to take the head off while I was decorating cakes, because I didn't want it to fall onto one.  Without the head I looked a little bit like a fencer or an albino ninja turtle...but I won the costume contest!  Hurray!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A couple of friends of mine and I decided to make a Harry Potter themed haunted house for the kids to go through before getting their candy. 

There were Dementors and spiderwebs hanging from the ceiling.

A giant spider stood guard over the door. 

We decided to make a Harry.  Our supplies included a Gryfindor cloak and scarf, a tripod and some towels/shirts to stuff him with.

Harry ended up having a very large potbelly.  He had really let himself go...

We printed out a picture of his face to complete the majestic Harry dummy.

We tied his arm up with dental floss (which is REALLY strong) and stuck a stick in the sleeve as a wand.  We also stuck a mini strobe light in his sleeve so that it would look like he was casting a spell.  There was a cd with an audio clip of him saying 'Expecto Patronum' that we played in the background on a loop so that it looked like he was expelling the dementors.  It mostly just looked ridiculous though.

For my own front yard I made a thoughtful looking skeleton to hang out in one of the bushes.

Ghosty was also hanging out in the front yard, and greeted people with his lovely ghost singing.

A very late Halloween post

Guess who likes Disney/Pixar's "Up"?!... If you guessed me then you sir and/or madam are correct! Because of my love for Up I decided to would go as one of the characters for Halloween. And of course I had to pick the most ridiculous character...Kevin! I made the costume out of wire, cardboard, felt, fun foam, and lots and lots of hot glue and duct tape.

I also made the body out of a cardboard box, some fibrefill and many feathers. Without the feathers it looked like the body of a very out of shape elderly woman. It was kind of gross.

Many feathers and hot glue gun burns later....

Tada!

I wore it to work on Halloween and won the costume contest! I recieved a lot of interesting comments from customers, some calling me Big Bird and some just giving me looks as if they had never seen a crazy person inside of a giant bird costume before. Even though the head kept hitting the menu boards behind me and my neck and back were really sore afterwards I still think that it was worth it. It was also really interesting trying to reach around an enormous bird belly to get change out of a till...

"You didn't take your tent number!"