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Red Velvet Worm, Crossing Signal and the Golden Gate Bridge!

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You"ll never believe these costumes sent from a parallel cardboard universe. Interactive lights, secret candy chutes and functioning game pieces. Yeah!

What impresses me most, is the smiles of a family that "makes" together. From hair-brained idea to triumphant march on Halloween night, you can tell they enjoyed the whole process.

I hope you will be as inspired as I was by the favorite cardboard projects that costume meisters Rosie and Ben have created over the years. They sent me these pictures of their costumes for the Cardboard Costume Challenge.

Viva la Halloween!

1. Anglerfish. Complete with hinged mouth that opens and closes, push light eyes and an internal switch for the overhead light.

2.  Red Candle. Contains an internal switch so friends can "blow" out the candle.

3.  Crosswalk.  Contains switch from "walk" to "don't walk."  So fun!

4.  Tropical Pitcher Plant.  Fly hat for a finishing touch.  Includes chute to drop in candy!

5.  Calculator.  "hello!"

6.  Velvet Worm.  Yes, very obscure.  Silly string was used for "slime glands."

7.  Black Widow and Fly

8.  Connect 4.  Yes, the game actually works.  We donated it to a local school after Halloween.

9.  Golden Gate Bridge.  A hinge connects the road in the middle but we mostly stayed unconnected!

Cardboard Heads

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If you're thinking about making a cardboard headpiece for your Halloween costume, this weekend is the time to get started! Last Year we created 2 different kinds of cardboard heads, using two different methods.

The first head was for a chameleon costume, and utilized the hood pattern for sewing a kid's jacket. To read the post about adapting a sewing pattern for use with cardboard, click HERE

The second head was built by making a cardboard skeleton and then gluing down layers of  ripped cardboard. You can see more pictures of the development HERE.

Because every cardboard head is a little different, I'll lay out the most basic steps so you can get started. Have fun and experiment, the point is to develop you're own style...

  1. Make a cardboard band that fits snugly around your head.

  2. Create cardboard side pieces that are similar in shape to the skull of the creature if you look at it sideways.

  3. Glue or staple the pieces to the cardboard band.

  4. Use cardboard strips to connect the side pieces and shape the front of the creature's face.

  5. Cover your cardboard head with crumpled up and flattened out copy paper, fringed newspaper, Kraft paper, torn pieces of egg carton or ripped pieces of corrugated cardboard. You can take a look at the Cardboard Costume Pinterest Board for more inspiration.

Here's a great video by John Gleeson Connolly (via Apartment Therapy) talking about how he made a simple cardboard dragon head for his son's Halloween costume using a similar method. http://vimeo.com/51576209