This year for Halloween I went as an alien from Toy Story as part of a group costume. At first I wasn't going to do a post on how I made the costume since Halloween had already past but I decided that I may as well since one, people should do more costume parties outside of Halloween and two, I spent a solid hour painting my face, neck and arms green. The world should know!
I looked through pictures on the Internet for ideas on how to put the costume together - even made a Pinterest board. What I eventually settled on was a handmade hairband, skater dress with a felt pizza planet logo and leggings. It was pretty simple to put together and only requires some patience in regards to sewing.
Materials used
A4 Crafting foam - lime green and white
Double sided sticky tape
Needle and thread
Felt sheets - blue, orange, yellow and red
Lime Green pipe cleaner
Marker pens
Hairband
Lime Green face paint
Bright Eye Shadow Palette
Chunky Belt
Lime Green Leggings
Blue Long Sleeve Dress
Pizza Planet Logo
I started by tracing out the orange circle and the yellow ring making sure to keep a bit of excess yellow felt on the ends of ring so I could tuck it in behind the orange felt. I then cut out the pepperoni and mushrooms out on the red felt sheet and used a blue marker to turn mushrooms to purple. Same with the green herb bits, I used the yellow felt and a green marker. Just saved me having to buy more colours of felt. From there I laid out where I wanted every piece to be and started to sew the orange and yellow pieces onto the blue felt. If you want you could probably just sew straight onto the dress and do without the blue felt but I wanted to be able to use the blue dress again without having to unpick everything. Once everything was on the blue felt I trimmed the excess felt away and sewed the logo onto the dress making sure to stretch the dress when sowing it on so when I put the dress on the badge it wouldn't be ruffled too much since I'd already accounted for movement.
Alien Hairband
Initially I planned on using felt for this too but I'm so glad I ended up getting the foam because it ended up being way sturdier. The first step is to fold a pipe cleaner in half over the centre of the head band and twist the pipe round each other so it creates a secure antenna.
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| The dodded line is where the foam folds under the hairband |
I then drew out a shape like the top half the drawing/rough template above and folded over the foam so when I cut around the shape I had drawn I would be left with a shape similar to above. I made sure that the middle tab would cover the bottom of the pipe cleaner on the headband but also wouldn't be top thick that it would stop the hairband from gripping to my hair all the way round. I stuck the three white foam oval eyes and eye lids on the outside with double sided sticky tape and the ear shapes on the inside. I used marker pens for some shading and the pupils and then sowed the top of each side to each other to secure it in place leaving room for the antenna. Originally I used double sided tape for this step too but it eventually busted open when left for a while. The foam is sturdy enough to withstand sewing just as long as you don't create to many holes (take extra care if you decide to use a sewing machine).
Make Up
Thankfully I did a trial run and a patch test of the face paint otherwise it would have taken a lot longer on the night. The first time I looked slightly more like Disgust from Inside Out which is an alternative costume idea you could use.
I started with a clean, bare face and used a foundation brush to pack the paint on and later went in with a sponge while it was still wet. However don't use the sponge too much because you will end up taking the paint off your face more often than getting it on. Once I was happy with my paint layer I set it with a mix of green, blue, yellow and white eyeshadows using the darker colours to conture and create dimension. Originally I was going to wear a bun but eventually decided to keep my hair down so I didn't have to paint the back of my neck completely. I used a white eye pencil to make my eyes look a little bigger and mixture of blues and yellows on my eyelids.
If I had more time I definitely would have painted more little aliens on my nails but I haven't quite mastered nail art yet so I'll have to leave it for another time.
Et Voila!
So once the leggings are on and the hands are painted (if you can get gloves... it's a lot easier) that's the costume complete. If you have budget I would recommend attaching a purple roll neck if you want to be even more accurate. If your like my mum you'll be asking "What about padding? Won't you need padding to make you look round like the aliens?" You can probably skip that step unless your fully committed to the look. I also thought about attaching aliens to my belt and carrying around a claw but it just wasn't in budget. Ain't nobody got time/money for that!
So that's it! Written out it seems like a bit of work but really it's pretty simple. A bit of cutting, sewing and taping really. Hope you like this post from me.
Until next time, peace out!
Hazel, xoxo
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