Costume Sneak Preview

We are working on Halloween costumes when time allows. Time does not allow that much!  And when you hear our plans, you may think we have bitten off more than we can chew!

Caleb is planning to be Hiccup Riding Toothless.  We found several interpretations of this online and set about making our own version.  I was feeling kind of stumped and one day just sat down and made a tower of cardboard loops to start the tail.  From there, Toothless began to come together.

I thought at first we'd just do plain cardboard and paint it black like our shark head last year, but that involves "leatherizing" a great deal of cardboard, which is time consuming - although the cardboard is nice to work with at that point.  Instead, we are covering the cardboard with paper mache.  The tail is now ready to be attached to the body.

Tail fin attached.

Tail fin detail - the "veins" are straws cut in half lengthwise.

Horribly fuzzy picture of the tail with side fins attached.

For the head, I made a mouth of cardboard and a piece cut to look like a side view help with the shaping and to hold the mouth in place.  Then I took some packing paper and crumpled it around the head into a Toothless-ish shape - taping it to hold the shape.

I added on the eye and brow and the four ear-like parts.  They are straws covered with paper and once the head was paper mached, they looked pretty nice.

All this is going onto a diaper box and then we'll have to think about wings.  I don't know what we are going to do about them yet!  Fortunately, the Hiccup part of the costume should be easy.

Annalise is going to dress as Karana from Island of the Blue Dolphins.  Karana tells of two skirts she wears - one of yucca fibers and one of comorant feathers.  We are going to try to replicate the yucca one.  We have some fiber like fabric for that.  And Karana wears a wreath of flowers on her head and bone or shell jewelry.  She's also barefoot, but I think Annalise will have to wear shoes!

Natalie is going to be a Fairy Princess.  I had some sparkly purple fabric I got in the remnant bin and never used and made a somewhat rough dress for her.  She loves it and made a crown from cardboard and found the perfect pink wings at Goodwill.

Irene - the kids wanted her to dress as a hummingbird and we got so far as sketching a design, but I get the last say and this year, she is going to wear Natalie's old Queen Elizabeth dress.  We'll just find some brown haired historical queen to say that she is!