Costume Challenge Round 2: It's a Jungle Out There, and other overused titles

I had a lot of fun with the animal themed costumes last year, so this year I decided to do a few of them.

Costume #8: Leopard

I got the tacky leopard print trenchcoat back in my freshman year of college for five bucks at a clearance sale--I rarely get the chance to wear it so it was fun to pull it out. The leopard print pants I found in my Mom's costume bin.

The makeup is a lot easier than it looks. I just drew the circles in with eyeliner, then filled them in with brown eye shadow. I did some other details in black eyeliner, and then did my hair in two buns to look a little like cat ears (like I did with the tiger costume last year).

Costume #9: Alice in Wonderland
I needed one non-animal costume this week because I had a music therapy appointment right after work, so I figured this was an easy one.

I wore my blue dress, and borrowed a white apron. I added some black and white stripe socks and made a black hairbow out of felt. I kept the makeup pretty natural looking-- this really wasn't a very crazy costume but it was kind of nice to have one that didn't take a lot of time to get into and out of.

The ultimate Alice in Wonderland Halloween song would have to be Heads Will Roll, but I used that for my card soldier costume last year so instead let's say a good theme song would be Jabberwocky by Donovan. (The version by Erutan is probably even better, you can look that up on YouTube)

Costume #10: White Rabbit

When I was looking up ideas for Alice costumes, I kept finding fun ideas for white rabbit costumes so I decided to run with it. 

I wore white pants and a white undershirt under a red and blue outfit to give an impression of white fur. I made some rabbit ears out of fun foam (fun foam is the best! Where has it been all my life!) and made an oversized pocketwatch out of cardboard. I also had a tail made out of cotton balls. 

 The makeup was simple but fun; a light dusting of white eyeshadow so I'd look pale, then details in black eyeliner. I found this was a makeup look that was very conducive to pulling silly faces.

Let's see, is there another Halloween appropriate theme song I can come up with? Well, Hold My Heart by Lindsey Stirling fits the bill if you watch the music video.

Costume #11: Giraffe

Not much to say about the clothing part; I just wore yellows and browns. 

The makeup was a little more intense. I put two buns in my hair trying (but not entirely succeeding) to look like giraffe horns, and made some ears out of felt that I stuck in with bobby pins. The makeup is mostly spots drawn in with brown eyeliner and filled in with brown eyeshadow. I also did some elongated nostrils and some purple-brown lipstick. 

This one got a lot of good reactions-- for some reason, people are really impressed when you can do makeup on your neck? I mean, I'm not sure why that should be harder than on the face, but OK.

And no, I am pretty confident that there are no Halloween songs about giraffes. The best I can do is to tell you to listen to the band Steam Powered Giraffe, which does have several songs that could be classified as "Halloween" --particularly their song "The Ghost Grinder", so I guess that almost works as a theme song if you squint at it long enough.

Costume #12: Werewolf

Well, I was aiming for werewolf but I'm honestly not too pleased with how this one turned out. 

I tried using lots of eyeliner to look like fur and get some wolf-type facial features, but I overslept and had to rush the makeup and it all turned out a lot messier than the tutorial I was following. Everyone at work was pretty confused about what, precisely, this was supposed to be. 

I actually took some time to make a tail to go with it-- made by brushing yarn so that it looks like fur. The tail is not pictured because, well... I kind of forgot I was wearing it when I went to the bathroom. So that was several hours of work down the drain.

Yeah. This one was kind of disappointing, it turned out a lot cooler in my head. Mostly the costumes this week were pretty good, though, so I guess I can be OK with sticking a dud in there.

(Theme song would have to be Werewolves of London by Warren Zevon, though Little Red Riding Hood by Sam Sham and the Pharaohs is a good runner-up)

And that's it for now. Just two more weeks of this and then I'll-- well, I'll be done at the thrift store and focusing on music therapy and orchestra teaching instead. That's still kind of hard to believe, but I guess I'd better get used to the idea.

Anyway, until next time.