Kitchen Costuming

I know we are all connected, but most of you that are commenting on this blog look very much alike. When I sent out notices to my friends and family that I started a Wordpress blog, I also sent them the information on how to get their adorable little faces here too.  But, alas, they all ignored me so I decided I needed to do a post about gravatars.

Actually, David was the one who figured out how to put an avatar picture up first.  Man! I was surprised to see his picture with his comments the first time.  I looked all over the registered profile page to see where one adds a picture for their avatar, but there was nothing.  Wow, I thought this guy was really magic (most of the time he is), but then found out that he had just received an email about gravatars.

What is a gravatar?

“A gravatar, or globally recognized avatar, is quite simply an image that follows you from site to site appearing beside your name when you do things.”  And of course, as far as I know, this is the only way to get a picture on your comments and it is a free service.  Therefore, go to http://en.gravatar.com/ and sign up.  You will be able to then go to any Wordpress blog that allows pictures and see your own unique self when you post a comment.

For Halloween this last year I wanted to display a pirate flag.  The book Pirateology had a design I really resonnated with.  These are the colours of a fictious female pirate by the name of Arabella Drummond.

The pattern was a hand drawn copy transferred to Wonder-Under and ironed onto muslin fabric.  It was then easy to cut out and iron in place on the black fabric.  I sewed a running stitch about 1/8 inch along the muslin edges.  The skull and swords pattern appears on both sides of the flag.

Ahoy, ye scurvy dogs, let’s face it, pirates have fascinated us for centuries.  Pirate costumes and accessories won’t be going away anytime soon with the anticipation of Pirates of the Caribbean 4 set to arrive sometime in 2012.

A couple of years ago, I had the opportunity to make a pirate costume for a friend, David, who had always wanted one.  Although I was responsible for the majority of the clothing, it was a very time consuming project.  Therefore, I thought it would be more fun to have David work on some of his own props.

As soon as The Halloween Express stores (www.halloweenexpress.com) were open we decided to scope out the various pirate pistols and swords. The sword was from Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean line of costume accessories.  It is about 32 inches long and has a really nice heavy plastic sheath.  Unfortunately, I don’t think it is still available for sale anywhere.  Hopefully it will make a return when the new movie is finished.

David bought a couple of pistols and quickly disassembled them to sand any imperfections in the molds.  After putting them back together, modeling putty (I think JB Weld might work better) was applied to fill cracks and holes that shouldn’t be there. With various latex paint mixtures and David’s talented eye for modeling replicas, he had some really nice looking prop pistols.

The sword, on the other hand, was a little more involved as it had a sheath cover that needed sewing.  That was left up to me.  I will cover the makin’ of the scabbard in the next post.

I put a link on my blog last week for the Arizona Ghostbusters and I really wanted to highlight them a little more than just that.  AZspidey, in-between gigs as The Joker or his version of Spiderman, was asked to join the Arizona Ghostbusters a few months ago.

This group is a fan based costume club, but what makes them really special is their spirit.  I am not talking ghostly spirit here, but charitable spirit like in doing community service work for many of the organizations helping children and families.  These guys are not paid for their services and spend countless hours of their own time attending events and collecting donations for many charities.  The Arizona Ghostbusters are committed to not only having Marshmallow Man-size fun, but to making a difference in the lives of many people.

You won’t need Ecto Goggles or a PKE Meter to find these guys, just go to www.arizonaghostbusters.com and look for their next upcoming event!  See them in California at San Diego Comicon 2009 in July!

How much could it cost if I were to try to make a costume from home?

How much a costume you make at home could cost quite a bit depending on what your costume is and whether you choose to take advantage of cost saving methods in building your costume. 

Fabric can probably be one of the biggest expenses you might have towards the garment, but it doesn’t have to be. Look for fabric remnant stores, shop the internet, and use coupons and sales at local retail stores.  When JoAnn’s Fabrics is offering forty to fifty percent off coupons weekly through either their stores or online, it is just plain foolish not to use them.  You can have them mailed to your house and emailed to you by signing up at www.joann.com or any JoAnn’s location.  The Sunday’s paper usually has a flyer with coupons for the week (coupons can be used for other things besides fabric). I know other retail stores have these kinds of savings, but in Phoenix we have lost a lot of our competing fabric stores.  Check the stores in your area. I find remnant stores to be a better value than retail because you can buy some fabric by weight instead of per yard.  The down side here is that you may not know what kind of fabric you are buying or how to clean it. Todd (AZspidey) and I bought over 6 yard of 60 inch wide material for about $16.00 for his purple joker coat.  Remnant stores also have sales.  That much fabric at a retail store would have cost us at least $60.00 without a coupon or a sale at JoAnn’s (if we could even find the type of fabric or color we were looking for).

Obviously a costume can cost as much or as little as you want to put into it.  The point here is that a great looking costume does not have to cost a fortune, be smart about buying the materials and do it yourself.  If you just can’t sew or can only make parts of the costume yourself, think about bartering for services when you don’t have the money. Buying clothes from a thrift store is a great way to jump start a project also.