As we close in on Halloween weekend, many of us will scramble the afternoon of a costume party, struggling to find a last-minute idea.
Luckily, Marissa Kochanski, a costume designer with St. Albert Children’s Theatre, is here with four ideas she came up using household items.
Lion (or faded flower?)
How about a lion?! Marissa Kochanski with another easy costume idea:) What’s a memorable one you’ve made up? #yeg pic.twitter.com/0PRgAoZisH
You may not have a full-body costume, but with a few shreds of newspaper and some ribbon, you could be coiffed with a majestic mane.
And, bonus: Kochanski said the costume could double as a zombie plant.
“It could also be part of a dried floral arrangement,” Kockanski told CBC’s Radio Active. “What child doesn’t want to be part of a dried floral arrangement?”
Great Pacific garbage patch
How did all those plastic bags get in your house? Put them to good use and become the Great Pacific garbage patch (and make sure to recycle them after). (CBC)
What better way to have a last-minute costume while showcasing your social consciousness by going as the giant island of plastic bags floating in the Pacific Ocean?
“If you’ve got a big plastic bag from a shopping market, and you cut off the bottom, the two handles are instant sleeves,” Kochanski said.
She stapled bags to bags to bags and soon enough she had a dress big enough to show up to a party as a floating pile of garbage.
Kochanski said there was one thing missing, though.
“I didn’t have any distressed sea creatures in my home, but if I had some, I would also perhaps staple them to the dress,” she said. “Or starfish or something for people to know there is a nautical theme.”
If you have to explain a joke, it’s usually not a good one, but the plastic-bag princess dress alone gets the point across.
VHS tape skirt
Kochanski holds up her VHS skirt made up of lower-body exercise tapes. (CBC)
It’s something Cher might wear — in the 90s, maybe — and it’s made out of something you probably don’t use anymore.
“It looks a little bit like a 1990s techno. Like an emu, really,” Kochanski said.
The costume designer created it after noticing a certain type of VHS tapes in her house.
“I had all these lower-body exercise VHS tapes,” she said. “And then I thought … OK, the true lower-body solution is to just cover your body with the VHS tapes!”
Never mind working on that lower body — cover it up with some appropriately-themed VHS tapes.
Trophy deer
Cardboard + headband + twigs = a trophy buck! Some great costume ideas from #yeg designer Marissa Kochanski. pic.twitter.com/UZQd65Gt4x
Kochanski found some cardboard around her house and the ball started rolling. “I cut a plaque that you’d hang on a wall,” she said.
“Then, I went out and I had some twigs in my yard and I attached them to a headband. And I’m a deer!”
She drilled pilot holes into the twigs and used some screws to hold them to the headband. She used plumber’s strapping as she didn’t have a headband, but said that would work fine.
“It didn’t really cost me anything at all,” she said. “I think these things are bona fide things that regular, normal muggles could have as well.”
Kochanski said the small amount of carpentry involved in the costume-making goes a long way for costume durability.
“The most difficult part of a costume is making sure it all stays together,” she said. “The best advice I can give everyone is before you think too much of the decoration, like painting stuff, think of the foundation of your costume.”
Listen to Radio Active with host Portia Clark, weekday afternoons at CBC Radio One, 93.9 FM in Edmonton. Follow the morning crew on Twitter @CBCRadioActive.