It’s only been a couple of weeks and I already miss Halloween. A year is just too long to wait for my favorite holiday. I hope everyone had a safe and Happy/Spooky Halloween. I had a great time this year building my costume and showing it off and even adding to it last minute.

It was great to see all the wonderful homemade costumes this year for young and old. There are some creative people out there and seeing the creativeness just makes me wish Halloween was more than once a year. They do other holidays more then once a year, why not Halloween? I already know what I am going to be next year and will start planning it soon. I like to buy little pieces at a time once I have my mind set on an idea and I’m set on this idea!

This year I went as Meals on Wheels. To say the execution of how I had it planned went far better in my head then how it really came out, but I was extremely happy with the end result. My biggest obstacle were my spokes. I had this brilliant idea that they would make awesome shish kabobs. Cute idea, pain in the butt to execute. I wanted to save as much money as I could with the costume so I just ended up buying a set of fast food erasers (hamburgers, hot dogs, etc). I wanted shish kabob food erasers, but couldn’t find what I wanted and anything close was just too expensive individually. I thought I could just hot glue the erasers onto a spoke bead and be on my way. That was so not the case. The erasers came apart so I had to glue them a few times so they wouldn’t come apart and then cut slits in them so the spoke bead would rest flat on the bead and stay. Then had to wrap the spokes in tape so the beads wouldn’t spin! It eventually worked, but took far longer then I thought they would. That’s why you always start early for any mishaps along the way.

The rest of the costume went pretty smoothly. My friend Carried designed my Meals on Wheels sign and I attached to some thick poster board and I glittered up some plastic ware to go along the side of it. Dad attached that to some PVC pipe and it rested on the top of my back rest just perfectly. I added the table after not winning Saturday night. I just thought my costume needed something more and it turned out great. And that was made with a piece of cardboard and a tablecloth I got on clearance and stapled it on!

I ended up winning a couple local costume contests. I didn’t win the trip yet again. A guy dressed as Iron Man won that. When I saw him I knew my chances were toast at winning the trip. His costume was amazing and homemade. Looked like it came off the set of Iron Man, that’s how good it was. I won Best Individual Costume at Woody’s on Friday night and won a $50 gift card. We struck out on Saturday at Bucks so we went back for their second contest on Halloween. I was drinking that night so the night dragged on long for me. Finally about 12:30 AM they starting announcing winners. They have categories in scary, group, sexiest, funniest, and best overall. Best overall is the last to be called and low and behold they called Meals on Wheels. I ended up winning $200 and $100 gift card to Bucks plus some T-Shirts and some bar cups, etc.

I would have loved to have won the trip, but I was happy with my winnings. It’s exciting to win and that is one of my motivations in making my costumes and the fact there will not be another one like you there!

I’m looking forward to next year and seeing what all of you will be creating in the next year. I think wheelchair costumes are going to be more common as the years go on. So happy to see more and more every year!

© 2012 Kristina Allen | |