Halloween is my most favorite holiday. If I had it my way Halloween would occur once a month. I start prepping my costume months ahead of time. The minute one Halloween is over I am always considering what I am going to be for the next one, or the Halloweens after that. The problem is keeping all the good ideas between me and a few friends -- I don't want anyone to copy me and those few that know are sworn to secrecy or I will rip their arms off.

I was a roller skate last year and it was my first go at designing a costume around my chair; I fell in love with it. This year I went as a Jack in the Box, or in my case, a Jane in the Box. It came out fantastic. I was able to reuse part of my costume from last year. Saved some time and money.

It was really simple to make, a box, some wrapping paper, tinsel garland, and PVC pipe. A local shipping store built me a box the size of me in my wheelchair. I had my dad cut a hole in the top for my head and part of my body and a big hole in the bottom to fit around my entire chair so we could just lift it on and off. For added effect I purchased some portable speakers for my ipod and they worked perfectly to play “Pop Goes the Weasel” – it was great!!

I went with a clown look for Jill. My inside outfit was just as cute as my box. You don't have to dress up on the inside, but those details are important to me. I had pink and purple striped glitter tights, and I couldn't find a pink clown outfit so I ordered a retro disco type costume dress from Target and it worked perfectly. Curled my hair and put it up in pigtails and a small top hat on and my look was complete with my glitter collar.

Chelsea and I went to a local bar that was giving a trip to Vegas away for best costume. Everyone there loved my costume from the box to the makeup. Lots of people were taking photos with me. They had 187 people enter and of course I was last. Judges looked at the all the photos and voted based on categories.


It comes time to announce the winners and they had categories for sexiest, funniest, best group, scariest, and best overall. The DJ talks the winning costume up big time saying this person put a lot of time and effort into the costume and looks to be homemade, etc. My friends, the waitresses, and everyone around me was saying it has to be me when they announced it was a woman dressed as Wall-E the robot. That got a lot of a boos -- she was a PLAIN cardboard box with Wall-E written on the front and she had goggles on her head. I couldn't believe I lost to a cardboard box. We left shortly after that ticked off and not happy.

Lucky for Chelsea and I they were having a second costume contest on Monday, the 31st. I had to redeem myself and make sure my entire costume got photographed. A waitresses thought I should have won Saturday, said I got robbed by not winning. She said I was simply the best and a lot of others told me that. Fast forward through the night and it comes time to announce best over all costume and my favorite waitress comes up to me and said lets go – you won!!

I was grateful for the win, but Monday's prize was $100, a $50 bar tab, some shirts and stuff. I'd rather be going to Vegas. I'm just going to have to go bigger next year and wow them. I already have a good idea of what I am going to be. Hope you all had a safe Halloween – I was good on my diet and only had two snack-size candy bars total. 

You can check out the rest of my Halloween Photos -- Here!!

© 2011 Kristina Allen |