Tuesday, October 27, 2009

My Most Memorable Halloween Costumes

Halloween is approaching and I have been reminiscing about my favorite Halloween costumes when I was a kid. Growing up my Mom wouldn't just ask me what I wanted to be and go buy it at the store. We would brainstorm together and make my costumes. This was always special to me. My Mom laughs at me now and says she tried to make it fun, but money was simply tight: "It wasn't that I was trying to make wonderful childhood memories, we just didn't have the money to throw away on something for you to use for one night." Boy did she have me fooled!

Here are some of my favorite costumes in no particular order:


  1. A Bookworm - my Mom made most all of my outfits so that they could be used as pajamas later. I remember the material had horizontal stripes all around. With help I cut out of cardboard my over sized book and wrote on the cover the title and author. At that time I loved all the Ramona stories by Beverly Clearly, so I used one of my favorites for the title.

  2. Wonder Woman - my Mom made the pj's white with Wonder Woman's costume in blue & red on the top and bottoms. My favorite piece was the cape she made me. It was blue with white stars on it. It had to be the coolest Wonder Woman costume I'd ever seen.

  3. A Flower Pot - We used a round laundry basket and cut out the bottom of it. Of course I had pj's on my body and Mom made a headband with flower petals all around it to frame my face. The last piece was a pair of my Dad's suspenders that attached to the pot and me. I would sit down at the doorstep and when they answered the door I stood up like a flower growing from the pot. It was very cute.

  4. A Skeleton - My Mom made the pj's black and appliqued the bones onto the pj's.

  5. A Spaceman - This was one of my earliest costumes. Mom cut part of a milk carton and spray painted it silver for my head and then wrapped me from head to toe in aluminum foil. She did makeup on my face using silver eyeshadow and made my face silver.

  6. Police Officer / Executioner - In 6th grade we had a haunted house in our gym. One of my best friends Stacy Helton was the prisoner I was executing. For once I didn't wear pj's! I had on jeans and a long sleeve button down shirt with a blue puffy vest. A relative gave me their sheriff's badge to put on the vest. I used my Dad's dress fireman's hat for my police hat. My Mom was a Mary Kay Cosmetics Consultant at the time and she did the coolest makeup for both me and Stacy. We had a great time that night!

  7. A Geisha Girl - My Dad fought in the Vietnam War. When he was in Japan he found this beautiful silk dress that he sent home to my Mom. The only problem was he didn't know that the sizes were so different in Japan and the USA. She never got to wear it, but I did around 5th grade. That's how small the dress was. I wore a black wig and Mom did my makeup. She made my face white and did some beautiful eye makeup. I went over to my Mimi's (my Mom's Mom) and she had no clue that it was me under all that. Sadly that was the only time the dress was worn, but Mom always kept it in the hope chest in front of my parents' bed.

I hope you enjoyed my walk down Halloween memory lane. I told my Mom what I was writing in my blog today and after I read it to her she said "We had so much fun, it was worth all of the work. What do you want to be this year?"