When it rains, it pours

I've been making a concerted effort to be more creative with my halloween costumes recently. That probably sounds like a dumb goal. For years my halloween tradition was sitting on the front porch of my family's house (glass of wine in hand), which happens to be in one of the best trick-or-treating neighborhoods in Greater Boston. I had a bag of funny costume pieces, wigs, hats, etc, and I would throw something on, sit on the porch, and watch the parade of (litterally) 1,000 plus trick-or-treaters file by. Cute kids! Great Costumes! Candy!

Whatever I was going to wear was a very small part of the halloween fun.

After moving to Portland, it was clear my halloween traditions would change. Partly this happened because I was surrounded with creative people who I found out get excited leading up the haloween over the details of planning and making their costumes in a way I haven't since my own trick-or-treating years. I guess the other reason was halloween parties. People show off their costumes, fun is had, (drinks are had...but that's not what this post is about) and there is just an infectious feeling of creativity and pride as people arrive in more and more elaborate homemade costumes.

So last year I decided to get my feet wet with something simple: A Corpse Bride('smaid). I liked the little play on words with the title. I also liked coming up with little catch phrases "doomed to eternity in this stupid dress" etc.

And putting together the costume was easy! I spent a total of $8 at goodwill on a floor-length peach dress  ($6) and a faux flower wreath ($2). I took apart the wreath to make a bouquet, and ripped and dirtied up the dress. Some splashes of red nail polish for blood, and some  make up, and I was in buisiness.

Pictured with a dolphin friend- because as I mentioned, I am surrounded by creative costume-making friends!

I got so many compliments that night! for the low cost and actually very small amount of work, I was amazed how successful my costume was, and how much other people seemed impressed with it. I was hooked. I wanted next year's costume to be even better.

So when I decided a month or so before halloween this year that I would like to be the girl from the Morton Salt cannister, I started thinking of ways I could take a slightly more creative spin on the costume and make mine different from those that I had seen on google searches and pinterest. There are some great Morton Salt Girl costumes out there!

First I considered trying to make it exactly true to the colors, even doing make up shading with navy blue, basically trying to look as accurate to the one-dimensional character as possible. I shopped for yellow bob wigs I could paint with dark blue accents, and shoes that matched those in the picture. I looked at the details like how giant both her salt cannister and umbrella are compared to her body.

And then...I threw out all those ideas and decided to do something easier. With my own black hair and the right make-up and accessories, I figured I could take the costume from childhood up to a teenage rebellious phase. I paired a yellow A-line dress I already had (sad backstory on that one, I bought it, wore it once and it got an oil stain right in the center where it is super obvious! So now I never wear it.) with black skull and cross-bone stockings, combat boots, black lipstick and studded choker, and a white umbrella I already owned. Now I just needed the salt cannister.  My costume was officially going to be "Morton Salt Girl- the rebellious teenage years"

It was craft time!

I purchased a giant tin of Royal Dansk Butter Cookies. This container would be the base for my giant salt cannister. I had some help from my co-workers eating through the cookies. They were champs. We are talking about 3 lbs of cookies.

I searched the web for a high quality image of the morton salt logo, and then with some simle adjustments to make the image the rigtht size ratio, I was ready to go. An employee at office depot helped me print my image to the size I wanted. I made two copies. Using double stick tape I secured the new label to my cookie tin, and using tin foil I made a lid that somewhat resembled the salt canister's top.

Not too bad, right?

Lastly I drilled two small holes in one side of the tin and strung a piece of fishingline through. Now I could carry my salt cannister hands free like a purse. (I even used the container to house my wallet, keys, phone and make up for touch ups! too bad the lid keep falling off, I dropped all my belongings so many times that night!)

And then it was just pulling everything together.

And, of course, showing off my costume and getting to see other friend's creative homemade costumes:

Now what will I do for next halloween?