This past weekend I was in Chicago visiting friends for Halloween. I was originally going to go as Ariel from the Little Mermaid, but the weekend prior, I had a free Saturday in which I ended up at Starbucks for some internet, which led to caffeine, which led to Goodwill, which led to Michael's, which led to my glue gun, which, well, led to an owl costume. Caffeine + Bobbi = some pretty interesting things.
But not before some Pinspiration:
First stop: Goodwill.
But not before some Pinspiration:
First stop: Goodwill.
Did you know that at Goodwill there is a tag color of the day...and that items with that color tag are 99 cents?! This is bananas. I got a little distracted searching for pink tags on items I wanted for myself, but after about 45 minutes (coincidentally when I had finished sucking down my Venti half-caff latte), I returned to the task at hand.
My plan was to find clothing items that I could salvage for "feathers"... but the plan quickly became finding clothing items with pink tags that I could salvage for "feathers". I managed to find 6 shirts with various colors, patterns and textures. I added these to 3 fabric remnants that I had at home, for a total of 9 different 'feathers'.
Clockwise from top left: (1) zig-zaggy remnants from my entryway bench project, (2) a pink-tag shirt, a majority of which I used for the base of the costume, (3) remnant from a dress I had shortened into a tunic, (3) a pink-tag khaki jumper, (4) a $3.99 investment from GW... because I loved the plaid pattern, (5) a pink-tag shirt, (6) more remnants from the #3 dress. Inside: two pink-tag items.
I spent a total of $8.94 at Goodwill, or $9.93 if you count the belt I used to cinch the waist. Bonus belt because it's totally cute enough to wear again.
Next stop: Michaels. I think the caffeine really kicked in here because I bought waaaaay too many embellishments for my mask. Including gold pipe cleaners, jewels, feathers and puffy paint.
When I got home, I dumped out the goodies and my heart fluttered because I loveeee these colors.
I played around with different things, including H-to-the-Izzo:
Yuuuup, that's a spit bubble.
Poor Henley. She didn't ask for a crazy mama. But, smart monkey that she is, she puts up with it because, well, I give her treats and cuddles and walks.
I used a cardboard template to cut the "feathers" you saw above with my brand new fabric scissors. This took the bulk of the time, but it was kind of meditative and soothing. I also blasted Mandy Moore on Pandora, so that might have had something to do with my zone.
You know you found something you love when even your scrap pile is pretty.
I then fired up my hot glue gun and settled in for a good time. I started at the bottom and glued on rows of feathers to a tunic-length shirt (99-cent pink tag, baby). This shirt had some stretch to it, which I think was the key reason all the different types of fabric glued nicely to it. The rows were perfectly imperfect. I made sure to let the bottom row of 'feathers' hang off of the shirt so you couldn't see the bottom hem.
Then, I kept going (and jamming, because, let's face it, Mandy Moore is under-appreciated as a musical artist), remembering to alternate patterns. I only had a handful of the feathers made out of the remnants I had from other projects, so I made sure to spread those throughout the costume. As I went, I glued down the feathers on top of the row below them, making sure that the feathers would lay flat but still have some texture to them.
You can't really see it above, but one of the pink-tag shirts had a cute applique, which I glued on to the tunic as a cute neckline. Then I just kept going with the feathers, making note of how they laid around the neckline. I planned to wear a cardigan with it, so I didn't fret too much about the sides of the shirt or the shoulders.
For the mask, I used a plastic mask that came in a group of 3 for $1.00 (read: LEFTOVER MASKS, PEOPLE). I hot glued light pink foam to it, cutting off the nose and making sure to be careful as I trimmed it smaller to fit my face. I cut the eye-holes bigger and glued hot pink felt around them. I used a 99-cent felt Halloween pumpkin to cut the owl nose out. I then glued gold pipe cleaners around the outside, feathers to the side of the eyes, and jewels to the eyes. I had to stop myself before I went crazy with the puffy paint. I wanted it to be simple, but I was have so much damn fun with arts and crafts time. Again, LEFTOVER MASKS. Who wants to have fun on New Years?
This is pretty much the best photo I have of me in the costume (Bobbi + vodka, after all). Yep, I'm wearing a jacket, but just use your imagination if you can. That's Eric. He's a keeper.
This really got me itching to learn to sew.
