Home made Halloween Costumes

Yesterday me and my intern Märta had so much fun. We made costumes for Viola and took some photos.
I love the way Märta creates. Her guidelines are: Use what you have, if you don´t have anything try to buy it vintage or have a look in your mothers closet.
Sure, you can buy a costume in half the time, but this is way more fun.

If you find one piece that you like you can build a character around that thing. And that happened a lot when we were planning. Märta had some cool headpieces and we created the characters around them. For example: the over-sized hat in one of the photos is really a basket from IKEA.

You don´t have to dress up into something with an existing title: like a ballerina or a lumberjack. You can combine the two, like we did, and get a lumberjackballerina!

The cat and the king are more traditional costumes and these are really easy to make:
The kings Crown is made out of leafs from the park. Märta folded them and stiched her way around it. The cape is an old sheep skin. You can attach ribbons to keep it shut or use safety-pins. It ads a little Lord of the ring-feeling to the king, I think.

A cat has to have a tail, ears and paws, so that is what she started with.
The ears are made out of fleece and cotton, attached to an old hair-band (Alice band).
She made the tail out of the same kind of fleece and stuffed it with cotton. It is easily attached to Violas pants with a safety pin.
For paws Märta went shopping at H&M, she found cheap black gloves and socks. And in Violas sock-collection at home she found one lonely pink sock. It was perfect for paw-pads. And OH so thrifty.
Then we started to look for black clothes in Violas closet and found a set of Long Johns, that worked out great.

The LumberJackballerina needed an oversized bow. Märta found an old skirt in her mothers closet and turned it into a cotton-stuffed bow. Fortunately Viola had an lumber jack shirt from Wallmart in her closet and it made a perfect match. Märta painted Violas eyebrows with eyeliner and used lipstick on her cheeks. The ballerina dress is made by Violas great-grandmother who made it for Violas grandmother when she was 4 years old and took ballet classes.
Red socks and Ruby red slippers completed the look.

Photos By me, Jenny Brandt

Styling by Märta Hansson