Vintage Halloween Costumes..What. The Heck? the stuff of nightmares

 Halloween around here has changed a lot. I remember making my own costumes, collecting things I would need, having my mom and dad put it together. Now everyone is trying to be a sexy occupation, something clever, punny or edgy and every little kid wants those mass produced big superhero du jour costumes you can find in any discount store.

But BACK in the day there were some crazy costumes! Have you ever stumbled across those old pictures? You know, the weird masks and scary faces, hobos, clowns and witches? (like a lot of clowns).

WHAT...THE...HECK???

So here is a trip down memory (Halloween) Lane...

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Happy Halloween!!

My pumpkin...sigh I just cant get it how I want it.

So last year at work we started a pumpkin decorating contest tradition.
I won with my Jack Skellington meets Liza Minelli pumpkin. It was FABULOUS.

This year I had to defend my title as reigning champion. AND... I JUST...WASN'T...FEELING...IT.
For Reals. (For reals?? Did I just type that?  Well it stays.)

I had visions of amazing craftiness pouring forth from my glue gun and paint.  I scoured pinterest. I bing'd, I googled.  I had the perfect plan. IT WAS ON! I was winning again, defending my title and winning the jackpot of money. I was so confident.


I was going to turn my humble little pumpkin into a candy apple.

I painted the pumpkin a beautiful shade of apple/lime green.  I used the puffy pearl paint in espresso. It was the perfect shade of caramel-y brown. I let it dry and did a primer for the caramel.
 I started putting the "caramel" onto my pumpkin...it did not want to go onto my pumpkin.  It wanted to slide.  It wanted to have a date with my tabletop and keep- it- neat newspapers. hmmmmm.
 So far not so good.  So I let it dry overnight and the next morning I came down to a caramel apple that looked like it had been sitting on the shelf for a week.  So I thought, "well I will cover it with sprinkles and drizzle it with "Chocolate and white chocolate".  I sprayed an adhesive on the paint/caramel and started putting on my sprinkles.  They were the little foil confetti of bats and witches and pumpkins in various halloween colors.  Like I said, in my mind, this was a brilliant pumpkin. Well these damn confetti sprinkles started clumping together and I dont know if the adhesive reacted with the puffy paint or what...I had confetti sprinkles that looked like someone had stepped on them AND on the apple at the same time.  hmmmmmm.

So final step was the drizzle black and white paint to look like chocolate drizzle. At this point the apple was looking like a crappy apple.  Then I took it one step too far with some orange puffy paint and ruined the whole thing.  I was sick to my stomach about it.
So while I was at work I texted my husband and said  SCRAPE EVERYTHING OFF THAT PUMPKIN I AM STARTING OVER!!!  I have one night to finish it, but I will come up with something.

SO last night I started over.  Thank goodness I have a craft room stocked with rarely used things.  You never know when you are going to need them.
So I did my pumpkin, and although I am not thrilled with the results (A little sloppy if you look to closely) it is 10,000,000,000x better than what I started with.

I ended up decoupaging the pumpkin with Modge Podge and book pages. I used pages from Dorian Gray and Canterville Ghost(to give it a little bit of a creepy halloweeny authenticity). When it dried I stenciled BOO in puffy paint and decorated a paper silhouette spider for the middle O in boo.  I had some orange and black tulle that I did a little bow.
I am not thrilled.  From far away it looks great, but up close its just OK.  You can tell I did it in 3 hours.

isnt that sunburn AWESOME!!!

Thats Clinique blush and some bare minerals...

we got more compliments on his fake sunburn and how awesome it looked at the trunk or treat on Saturday night.

My friend Dana and her husband were there and her hubby dressed in his army gear.

Well we ran out of candy so we sent the boys to the harris teeter to pick up some more.

So in walk the army GI Joe with my hubby (who was sporting a fake sunburn, black socks and sandals, shorts and an aloha shirt. It was awesome by the way)

I am sure the people at the HT were scratching their heads at that one.

here are the boys:

Finn was Death(?), grim reaper(?), Crypt keeper(?)...anyhoo, he was something with a long black hooded costume, an axe and a ace kind of like a skeleton.

Peter was Bumblebee Transformer and he brought his friend from school who was a pirate...or a ninja pirate, not sure why she had the belt around her eyes.

They had fun though. LOTS of fun.

I won FIRST PLACE in the Spicy category for my chili.  And it was super spicy too.  I used a whole pound of chorizo, rotel with chilis, another can of green chilis, white beans, shoepeg corn and tons of garlic. It was awesome. 

We carved some pumpkins too:

Darth Maul was my pumpkin, The traditional pumpkin was Finns and The Autobot was Peters.  I dont have a picture of charles' pumpkin. he did Scar from The Lion King.  It looked really good.

as for my costume...well, hmmm. It was alright.  I didnt feel like paying money for anything, so I did a quickie redneck version of Wheres Waldo.  I knitted a cap, painted some quick red stripes on a White t shirt and got some plastic glasses from one of the halloween stores. I am the cheap knock off version of Waldos cousin...Wildo (pronounced will-dough...not will-dew).  Mamma didnt have $ to copyright...
It was good enough that people kept yelling "Hey, Waldo! I found you!!".  I didnt even have to wear a nametag...

fun halloween times. I always enjoy the trunk or treat.