Halloween Party

For the past few years, Matt and his roommates have had a party at their house for Halloween.  2013 was no different.  

(See 2011 and 2012 here)

By mid-September, we were still at a loss as to what we were going to dress up as.  I don't remember why/how I came up with the idea of Little Mermaid, but after doing some research on it, I found the following pics on the internet and thought it could be fun:

Ariel and Sebastian

 

King Triton ideas

 

Ariel ideas

I sent some of the pics to Matt and after going back and forth, he decided he really wanted to be King Triton -- because he wanted to carry a trident.  I personally thought Sebasitan would have been hilarious, but there was no changing his mind.   Ariel and King Triton were the winners.  AND we decided to attempt to make the costumes ourselves.  

I found a couple YouTube videos on how to make a mermaid skirt, and I thought it looked pretty simple, despite my lack of sewing abilities.  (IE I've never sewn anything in my life.)  JoAnn's had the perfect shiny green fabric for the job!

Got the fabric and watching a tutorial on YouTube

We found seashells at Hobby Lobby - and they went straight to Christa.  She's the creative one, so she was in charge of the top!  I bought a cheap purple bra at Wal-Mart and she got to work!

 

I sent her the below picture that I found online.  And I got the bottom picture a couple of days later  She's so amazing.  She painted them purple and hot glued all of those tiny little pearls and rhinestones on -- and even used spray glitter on the star fish for my hair!

The one she made is even better than the one I found online.  
(Not that I was surprised by that.)

 

SO excited to wear this!

I found a pretty good wig on-line ... in China.  It was super cheap so I bought it and waited the 3 weeks it took to get over here!  Worth the wait.  Pretty perfect for Ariel!

 

After going to a movie one night, we decided to stop by Party City (right next to the theater) just to see what they had for Matt's costume.  His mom was making the skirt for him, but we had to get everything else.  I about died laughing when I found the muscle shirt.  So perfect for King Triton!  Then we found the trident, a crown, and a wig (which he actually ended up not getting).  We pretty  much found his whole costume in under 5 minutes!  Ugghh - it's so much easier being a guy! ;)

 

I had procrastinated long enough and realized I was running out of time with the skirt.  So I watched the video again, measured around my hips, and started sewing with my niece's sewing machine after a quick lesson from my mom.  

What. A. Disaster.  I don't know if it was operator error or if it is just a super cheap sewing machine, but it sucked.  The whole process sucked.  The machine would work for a little bit, then the string would break or it would start sewing backwards - no joke.  The thing was possessed I think.

 

I'm still not entirely sure where I went wrong.  I mean, I'm a pretty intelligent girl.  But how in the world I ended up with a skirt big enough for three people is beyond me.  I think I multiplied the measurement by two instead of divided it by two?  Who knows.  Either way, attempt 1 was a big fat fail, and I could not stop laughing when I put it on and it fell to the ground!  It took multiple attempts (and multiple hours) to get it to something even remotely resembling a skirt.

 

Attempt 1:  Complete fail                                        Attempt 2:  Getting closer

Attempt 3:  ready to start on the bottom

Since Halloween fell on a Thursday, it was decided that the party would be held the Saturday after Halloween.  Thank goodness.  It gave me a couple more days to work on the stupid skirt...which I had grown to loathe.  This is how I spent my Friday night and Saturday before the party:

Yes, I used a Cheerios box to draw my straight  line

My poor mother ended up putting more work in to the skirt than I did.  She sat on the floor and pinned and re-pinned and hand-sewed on that thing for hours... And put up with me complaining and arguing about it all.

 

But it was totally worth it (to me, anyways) when THIS was the finished product:

I was SO happy with the way it turned out!  LOVE IT!

We ended up cutting the "fins" down quite a bit to make it easier to walk, but it still looked awesome!

I loaded my stuff up and went over to Christa's house that evening for the final preparation:  hair and makeup!  Of course, she did an amazing job and worked miracles on my un-ruly hair.  I don't wear much makeup, so it's always fun when someone who actually knows what they're doing does it for me -- fake eyelashes included! Then it was outside for a little mini-photo shoot before the sun went down:

The outfit wasn't complete without a "dinglhopper" and a Flounder purse!

I tried to get Hunter in on the action, and had to bribe him over to me with my Flounder purse...but that lasted all of 3 seconds before he was done with me and pictures...

The finished product, thanks to Christa!

I actually had very little to do with the planning, cleaning or decorating for the actual party this year.  The boys really did a great job!  They spent way too much on decorations (again) and alcohol (again) - and Spen's mom made way too much food (again).  Better to have too much than too little I guess?  Here are some pics of the house before  the party:

The best part of the party for me is always when people start showing up and we get to see the costumes!  There were a couple good ones this year, including hand-made Sulley and Mike Wazowski from Monsters Inc! 

 

(Spray painting chest hair for Mr. Smee from Captain Hook!)                                   

Using the fork (aka dinglehopper) to comb my hair

 

Sully and Mike Wazowsky                                 "Sharknado"

 

Mr. Smee, Captain Hook, and the dog as the alligator!                  Rock, paper, scissor

Angy Birds and the German couple -- who got their costumes in Germany, too!

Could Matt's wig/beard be any more perfect!?

Disney characters!

My costume held up all night - despite being stepped on multiple times.  At some point during the party (after Matt had had more than a few drinks) I talked him in to switching costumes again like we did last year.  But he only wanted to wear my seashell top -- no skirt.  I had to do some serious talking to get him in that tight little green number...and he looked better in it than I did! 

I really wanted to go all out and do his lipstick bright red and get the crown on me, but I only had time to snap one quick picture (which didn't turn out that great) before he wanted out of it!

Before and After

The turnout wasn't quite what they were expecting (maybe because it was after Halloween?), and was smaller than years past, but it was still a fun party none-the-less.  Plus now we get to eat the delicious left over cookies for the next month! :)

Since I didn't help with the prep work for the party, I got up early on Sunday and cleaned the majority of the house and took down most of the decorations.  I had to do my part...and since I went to bed early (around 1:30) and didn't drink, I wasn't tired and hung over like everyone else! ;)  

This year's costumes turned out pretty awesome, if you ask me.  They're going to be hard to beat.  And after all the hours put in to that skirt...I jut might wear it again next year!