Thursday, November 4, 2010

A 1950's kind of Halloween


Every year I start to think about Halloween months in advance. Heck, I decorated pumpkins the first week of Sept. - ha - I get excited about the Holidays because it means a lot of fun things to craft and projects to complete! So as I milled over in my mind what I could possibly be - in usual Erin fashion 5 days before the Holiday I decided a 1950's House Wife. I'm a big fan of the show Mad Men, and love the 1950's style but also love being frugal so to my closet I went!

Odds and Ends from around the house!
From my closet I pulled a 3 year old Lime Green dress that I bought at Von Maur for $30.00, wore once and received so much grief at the office I never wore again. One of my favorite Black and white polka dot Summer skirts, and a favorite pair of wedge peep toe black shoes. Also a flower brooch I had just purchased at Forever 21 for $2.99 and wore to a wedding once.  I hit up the Halloween store to find the 1950's glasses for $5.99, and after a late call to find a time my Mom could help me sew later in the week - I knew I would raid her closet as well!

Once to my parent's house my Mom and I dug around in the basement closet to find the petticoat I wore as a 1st grader when I was dressed as Cinderella.  How this slip and tulle fit over my behind 20 years later - I have no idea but I'm not complaining! My Mom raided her 1980's jewelry box to find some perfect clip on black earrings, black ball necklace, and matching bracelet, and the final touch, a last minute guest room drawer find - a black and white polka dot head scarf! To work "we" went!
Mom taking the dress hem up about 10 inches!
I'd already practiced my hairdo after watching a 10 minute video on Utube for 1950's hair styles. The eye make up I took cues from a 1950's pin up poster, now the outfit just needed some updating! My mom adjusted the hem line to bring it up about 10 inches - the original dress was shin length. Then we added a thick ribbon band to the Polka dot skirt top and pined it to sew it shut to make the apron.
Cute picture mom - Working Hard!
Around 10pm we finally made our way to the sewing machine. I sat across from my Mom and helped give her direction on what she was doing right...and wrong :). Monte helped too!
This was motivation to keep working around Midnight!
Mom was NOT impressed with our Shenanigans :)!
After the minor adjustments the outfit was ready - and perfect! Mom's sewing skills proved to be excellent as always! It brought back memories of me being sewn into a fuzzy pumpkin ball as a child, or my sister standing on the kitchen counter while mom sewed her into her snow white costume! Or begging for weeks to be SUPER WOMAN, and then wearing the outfit to bed every night for the next year - truly believing I was super human!

Not really sure why Mel was always a creepy clown...I don't remember this at all.

 The outfit turned out awesome, and worked perfect for the night. My girlfriends and I made the Local Gazette and News Station Website for Halloween photos - what a blast! I even ran into my friend Josh who made his costume from stuff in his kitchen. He rigged his pockets with battery packs and wrapped his legs in Christmas lights to make the perfect Homemade Tinfoil Robot! And to end the night Michael Jackson came back from the dead to do some moon walking - what a great night! Til Next Year!
The girls before going out - Cowgirl, 50's and Kitty KT!
Monte in his Halloween Costume!
Josh the Homemade Robot and Homemade 1950's!
Erin :"Do you know how to moon walk?" Brit: "No - but I know how to move backwards!" :)