DIY Edward Scissorhands -costume

We had an Oscar Gala -themed Christmas party at work, and there was a preferred dress code. Apparently not everyone had read the invitation, since they didn't realize they could dress up as a movie character and not only in evening gowns. A lot of people hadn't worn anything special but some had really cool outfits!

It took me a really long time to decide who I'd want to go as, since the "genre" was so broad. I thought about using my Ursula-costume from Halloween but switching to the more authentic silvery white hair and purple makeup, if I couldn't come up with another costume. I also thought about another Halloween costume idea that I've yet to do: a starlet from an old black and white silent movie from the '20s, but that would require a lot of gray body paint and a small blackboard for text.

From the start I had decided to go as a character instead of an actor or a guest, since I like to dress up in costumes. Mom suggested I go as one of Helena Bonham-Carter's characters, but I was leaning more towards a male character just for the heck of it. When Tinde suggested I do Edward Scissorhands, after I had already played with the thought, I finally decided to go for it. Especially when I was told I wouldn't be able to pull it off with such a limited time and budget!

Painting them buckles with some bling! Unfortunately I accidentally left the opened bottle like that overnight and lost about half of what was left and the rest got all clumpy. Sadface, it was a really nice silver polish and they no longer make it! :'(

I got buckles (1,50 €) and some wide elastic (1,70 €) from a flea market, used some silver nailpolish to paint them (had ran out of silver spray paint) and built the costume around a pair of black college pants and a black turtleneck shirt (7,99 €) with a pair of black studded shoes. The studs I had from earlier (also second-hand, two huge bags of them) so decided to slap a bunch of them on the elastic as well. I didn't really follow the original costume that much, I decided to put a lot more effort in my scissorhands and makeup.

Making the gloves for the hands - remember to check which way your fabric stretches, cause I sure didn't! ;P Saves you time if you don't need to redo this step...

I couldn't find cheap gloves so I made them too from some black tricot fabric. I just traced my hand, (forgot to check which way the fabric stretches, had to redo it!) and then taped (5,99 €) a bunch of cardboard-duct tape "scissors" on to them. I had originally made the scissor bits rounded from the other end, but had to cut them straight since they proved difficult to tape. They turned out pretty cool, even though I used the very last evening in making them!

My lovely left scissorhand.

It was impossible to bend my fingers because of the cardboard and all that tape!

The finished costume! I'm pretty proud of myself, I liked the way it turned out. I managed to cut my hands a lot during the process of making the costume, which I found ironically hilarious. I opted to go as the genderbent  version of "Edward", seeing as I didn't even want to try to bind down my boobs. ;)

Derpy pose, but at least you can see the whole thing.

A dark, lonely soul

I didn't have a chance to try out the makeup beforehand, but I had watched through a couple of tutorials (there's a bunch of them out there!). I brought a ton of makeup with me to be able to pull this off, and used a Sleek makeup foundation that was a couple shades too light with Grimas translucent powder for the base. I then used Grimas scar wax (bought it a couple years back for a Halloween costume) to make very quick and basic scars that I lined with a brown and purple eyeshadow to make them pop. Then I used a dark purple, brown and black eyeshadows for my eyes (I didn't hide my natural eyebrows, since they are very light anyways) and some purple to draw out my cheekbones. Lips are done with just lipbalm and the purple eyeshadow. I really hope the makeup wasn't as lopsided as it looks in these pictures though...

I ended up winning the best female(?) costume! I was super stoked about this, though a lot of my coworkers told me they voted for me. This year's prize was a golden "Oscar" statue and a box of chocolate truffels. I actually won last year's competition too with my quick (rein)deer -look, so now I'm really psyched to keep this going! :P

This is what a winner looks like, bitches!

~Misantrella

Bonus pic: the stupid powder box thought it would be hilarious if it totally exploded in my purse. It really fucking wasn't.

Argh! I really hated cleaning this up and the bag still looks horrible. 

TL;DR: Made an Edward (Edwina cuz of boobs!) Scissorhands costume using only about 16,20 €. (I only bought the shirt, the buckles, the black tape and the black wide elastic, all other stuff I had already). Was told I couldn't do it but proved them wrong and won 1st prize, suckas! ♥

Halloween, part II: Halloweener

We had another Halloween party hosted by Tiina, Tinde and myself on the 31st. I dressed up in the morning so I could scare my coworkers - successfully too. I didn't have a specific costume, so I ended up throwing on a wig, messy makeup, fake blood and a long poofy skirt. The horns were an impulse thing I did in the morning.

Managed to scare a couple of coworkers with this getup, tee hee hee ;)

I rushed off to Tiina's place straight from work to help her with the decorations and got some last minute shopping done when Mr. J got there.

The paper garlands were from Tiger, we also had a bat-one. And lots of spiderweb!

More spiderwebs! And the tiny mareng ghosts had taken over everything *spoopy*

We had all sorts of lovely snacks and delicious chocolate cake, courtesy of Tinde. The tiny mareng ghosts were an absolute delight! ♥

...until I killed one...
(How do you kill a ghost?)

The cake was AWESOME! Every chocoholic's dream ♥

Iinamon's second boyfriend Bob looking over the table featuring Graveyard dirt, Mummy wieners, Dragon scales, Ghostcakes, Alligator skinflakes, Deadly Nightshade, Snake venom, Brain chunks, the dips Black Bat sneeze and Alien Sneeze are missing from the picture.

Outfit selfie ;P

 ~Misantrella

Halloween, part I: Bella Morte & Underworld ~ Release the Bats III

Oops, another month has passed again. I admit that blogging hasn't really been on my mind lately. I did however attend a nice Halloween party and actually made a costume for it, so lets look at that, shall we? :)

The final costume:

Cthulhu is my homeboy!

It was pretty much impossible to find the right shade of purple fabric, but I eventually chose a satin one. The colour looks very different in different lighting, and all the in progress pics are taken with my phone. I ended up using 1½ metres of purple satin and 1½ metres of black satin, 2 bags of foam filling + some remainders of an old pillow and about 12 metres of metal wire. I actually ended up shaving my eyebrows too in the middle of putting on my makeup, so now I'm sporting the cancer-alien look for a couple of weeks... :P

Not a whole lot to choose from.

In the process, most of the tentacles already sewn together and filled with foam

Hair all poofed up! I actually still had my eyebrows at this point, but this is how blonde I naturally am - you can hardly even spot them!
I actually would have loved to find some white/silver spray-on hair colour, but all I found was black and orange. Boo!

Mirror selfie of the outfit - can you tell who I'm supposed to be?

The only closeups I had of the makeup were taken with my phone, so really crappy quality!
Bummed that I ran out of time and forgot to take a purple eyeshadow to do some contouring. :(

Poor unfortunately soul!

Gothic Ursula! ^_^ I've always loved the Little Mermaid (the original story more than the Disney version) and these days my black heart beats for the bad guys & gals ♥

If I'd had more time, I would've added suction cups to the tentacles - if I could figure out a way to do it that wouldn't drive me up the wall, that is. I would've also done the shell necklace and earrings and would've gotten my hair a more suitable colour. I didn't want to get a wig for this, even though trying to get my hair back to normal was absolutely horrible! I also took the easy way out and just bought a lace blouse with a suitable sweetheart neckline, even though it's not fully visible here. I wore a second-hand fishtail skirt under the tentacles, which I sewed as a belt.

Tiina's new pal Bob tried to get a little frisky with yours truly. ;P

Overall I'm really happy with the way the whole costume came out, considering I only spent like three days putting it together. :) The makeup could've been better, especially with the contouring, but I got a lot of compliments and was happy with it myself, so yay! ♥

The party was nice, lots of people had dressed up and really put a lot of effort in their costumes! I didn't actually take any pictures at the party, but you can find some here (only for FB-users, sorry!).

Now I need to go get some rest, so I can try to be productive at work tomorrow. Only 363 more days till Halloween! o/

~Misantrella

DIY projects, being sick and why Blogger sucks hairy balls

Foreword: Blogger is being an absolute bitch to me, since I've been working on this one and only post ever since Monday. I had written and saved text on Monday and just needed to add photos. Well, when I went looking for the post I had written - poof, all gone and nowhere to be found. I then checked on it on Tuesday from my work computer - and there it was, just like I'd written it! Saved again so I could finish it at home - not there. -__- Found it again on work computer yesterday, still waiting for pictures, looked like it had been saved normally so I closed the page. Well, I checked it last night at home and it was blank. Nowhere to be found anymore today, only the same blank draft. Super annoyed! -__-#

My new nerd station! \o/ Laptop broke, so I spent most of my overtime money on getting a tabletop and a monitor. :P
Since I'm addicted to makeup (but don't use it nearly as much as I really should), my favourites are always waiting for me to pick them up. ;) And yes, I still need to rearrange the desk...
Feat. Mr. J's phone and whisky glass.

Lets see if I can remember what I actually wrote about...

Olin sairauslomalla suurimman osan viime viikosta ilkeän pitkittyneen flunssan johdosta. Katselin pääasiassa huonoja komediasarjoja vilttiin kääriytyneenä, mutta aika pian se alkoi kyllästyttää. Koska en kauheasti mitään jaksanut kuitenkaan tehdä, päädyin sitten askartelemaan (-paskartelemaan!). Olen ostanut Fimo-massaa muutamassa eri sävyssä jo ajat sitten, joten päätin ensin värkätä niistä jotain. Noh, en ole kovinkaan hyvä tässä hommassa, joten toistaiseksi olen saanut aikaiseksi vain tämän liian suureksi paisuneen ja epämuodostuneen lepakon täysin ilman yksityiskohtia, sekä Jack Skellington -kasvot, joista ajattelin tehdä hiusklipsut. Inspiraationa kalloille toimi siskoni joskus askartelemat kankaiset samanlaiset naamapallurat. Tuo musta Fimo muuten tarttuu sormiin aika lujaa!

I was on sickleave most of last week because of a flu that just won't leave me alone. I mostly slept and watched bad comedy shows, but got tired of it quite quickly. Since I didn't have a lot of energy, I ended up doing small craft projects. I'd bought the Fimo quite a while ago, so I decided use it all up. Well, I'm not very good at it and so far have only managed to make this (too) large and deformed bat (with no details too!) and two Jack Skellington -faces, that I'll be turning into hairclips. The inspiration for these was a couple of fabric skullballs my sister had once made. The black Fimo really sticks to your fingers!

The deformed bat got slightly bigger than I had planned, I still need more practice (or a really good bat mold!).
Skellington faces are gonna be hairclips. These are still waiting to be baked, I can't be bothered to heat the oven for just these tiny fellows.

Kyllästyttyäni vahalla pelleilyyn muistin tilanneeni kulutetun hopeansävyisiä lepakkomotiiveja. En enää ole varma mihin projektiin nämä alunperin tulin hankkineeksi (ai miten niin hamsteri?!), mutta innostuin kuitenkin heti leikkimään näiden kanssa. Ensimmäisenä yhdistelin lepakkokaverin hopeanväriseen ketjuun ja väsäilin näin tuommoisen hiuskoristeen. En tiedä onko näille joku oikea termi? Oma tukkani oli sen verran likainen, enkä muutenkaan ollut kovin edustava, joten poseeraamaan pääsi herra Kallonen. Silmäkuopissaan Kallonen kantaa keräämiäni (edelleen, hamsteri...) erikoisia kahden euron kolikoita. Lepakko tulee siis lepäämään otsalle ja ketju kulkee pään yli takaraivolle, jossa yhdistyy ohimoilta kulkevaan ketjuun. Tätä täytyy ehkä vielä vähän säätää, en ole varma mitkä mittasuhteen olisivat parhaimmat kyseiseen kapistukseen.

After I got tired of playing with the Fimo I remembered I had these nice antique silver bat charms. I can't remember why I originally got them (other than they're super adorable?), but I got instantly inspired. First I added a bat charm to some old silver chain I had and made this headpiece. Is there a correct term for this? My own hair was dirty and I didn't exactly look presentaby, so Mr. Skully got to pose for this one. In the eye sockets I have stored cool/interesting 2-euro coins (I might be a hoarder)- The bat sits on your forehead and the chain goes over your head and connects to another one going over the temples. I may need to adjust the chains a little bit more, since I'm not sure what measurements would be best for this one.

Mr. Skully and the bat-head-thingy feat. interesting 2-euro coins :P

Toisena projektina päätin yhdistellä lepakoita pehmoiseen softikseen, jota kätköistäni löytyi tällä hetkellä kolmessä eri värissä. Valkoiselta pohjalta hopeiset lepakot eivät näyttäneet erottuvan kovinkaan hyvin, joten kokeilin ensimmäisenä glitterpinkkiä. Näistä tuli varsin somat, joten tein myös yhdet mustat versiot, joihin lisäsin pätkän hopeista ketjua. Koska tiedän Ravenoariksen olevan myös lepakkohullu, päätin inspiraation puuskassa tehdä vielä yhdet hänelle, näihin tuli myös ketjua kaveriksi. Täytyisi löytää violettia tuommoista glitterfoamia vielä jostain, nämä pinkit eivät oikein mene yks-yhteen tällä hetkellä sinimustaksi muuttuneen vaatekaappini sisällön kanssa... ;P

For the second bat project I thought to combine the bats with soft foam that I had in three different colours. The bats didn't stand out from a white base very well, so I tried them with glittery pink foam first. These turned out really cute, so I made another pair in black as well and added a piece of the silver chain. Since I know Ravenoaris is also a crazy batlady, I decided to make a pair for her as well! I need to find more colours eg. purple glitter foam, since the pink ones don't really match my black and blue wardrobe... ;)

Glitter bats! Ooh and these are hairclips, btw. Everything is hair clips!

Tools, supplies and finished items. Yay! I don't know what I'm doing with the handcuffs yet, I just happened to have a tiny bag full of them and thought I'd see if I can put them to use.  :)

Ja koska ihana synkiöiden lempparijuhla Halloween on lähestymässä, tulin hankkineeksi myös creepyjä silmiä askartelua varten. Oikeasti nämä ovat ihan nuken silmiksi tarkoitettuja, mutta ajattelin värkätä myös näistä jotain tukkahärpäkettä. :)

And since every ghoul's favourite holiday Halloween is approaching, I got some creepy eyes for crafts. In reality these are meant to be doll eyes, but I thought I'd make something else out of them.

Fistfull of dollars eyeballs

Hopefully blogger will play along from now on, since I already have pics ready for another post! 

~Misantrella

TL;DR: Blogger is a bitch and loses text despite saving. Was sick at home and got crafty (pics, stuff used bought mainly from ebay). Waiting for Halloween, yay.