Halloween is my favorite holiday, hands down. Spring brings three things, relief from my seasonal depression, apocalyptic allergies, and preparation for Halloween. Every year I kick off Spooky Season by watching a walk through of the Transworld expo for some inspiration.
It’s been over a decade since I’ve been able to enjoy the best part of Halloween, having trick-or-treaters coming to the door! I haven’t lived in a trick-or-treat friendly neighborhood since high school, but all that changed last year when we moved into a neighborhood that is densely packed and full of kids. I wasn’t sure how much decorating everyone did, but I decided to really throw myself into the spirit of things, regardless of what the neighbors would be putting up. With a hyperactive toddler getting underfoot, I had to scale back my expectations just a bit, but I’m still so proud of what I was able to make!
Another yearly tradition has been making myself a Halloween themed outfit. Not a costume, but a regular item of clothing that’s definitely on theme. Halloween 2021 started as an impulse purchase of 3 table cloths.
I stand by the fit of the jacket, and I did my best to match plaids, though I managed to totally whiff on the pants, ugh. All the work I put into the fit of the jacket was obliterated by the poor quality of the fabric. Though perhaps the jacket would have looked even more shabby if I hadn’t put so much effort in. I didn’t finish the suit as a whole until the day of the 31st, so I didn’t get a chance to wear it out in the month of October. Hopefully I’ll have a chance to wear it around this year! So far I don’t have any ideas for a Halloween look this year, ah, actually, that’s a lie. . . I may have some ideas. The hallmark of a good Halloween outfit is that is camp, Too Much, and totally useless 11 months out of the year.
My original idea was to make something like this as an entrance to my garage, the kids would walk through to get to get to the candy. After some quick sketches and measurements and a realistic estimation of how much time I would have each day to spend working on this project, I scaled it way, way back.
Since I wasn’t going to make a large entrance gate, I scaled it way back to just be a fun place to keep the candy. I also wanted to make the cat a little bit friendlier. As much as I love the scary side of Halloween, I love cute little trick-or-treaters more, and I didn’t want anyone to be scared away from their candy! I’m not sure my toddler was the best test audience, he’s already pretty fearless and he got to see the whole process of the Scaredy Cat being made, so the end result wasn’t really a surprise to him. I played around with the sketch until I had something I really liked, then I cut out the paper pieces and traced them onto some mostly straight plywood I had in the garage. I was very lucky that my husband had been over-ambitious with a woodworking project a few years previously, as wood prices were sky high when I was working on this!
I’m glad I gave myself a much smaller project and months to work on this, because I was working on it up until the day of Halloween. Life happens! There were lots of starts and stops along the way. I like to give myself a lot of time on the complicated parts of a project. If I didn’t want to feel rushed when using a jig-saw and I only did the woodworking portions of this project when I felt like I could give it 100% of my attention.
Looking back, I should have painted the individual layers before assembly, it probably would have saved me a LOT of time. But I didn’t have a clear idea of how I wanted the paint to look, so I just went with it.
I used two Hue Playbars inside a little cardboard contraption, one to light his mouth purple, the other to light his eyes yellow. The metallic green paint I used made it look like his eyes were really glowing! As proud as I was of my creation, I just had to go with my little guy on his first ever Halloween in costume. It took him a few stops to figure out what was going on, and he had so much fun. It really was a magical night for everyone. My mother and brother kindly offered to tend the candy and said that a lot of people stopped to take pictures as well as candy. Nothing could make me happier than to be a part of making happy Halloween memories.
I have spent a lot off time feeling frustrated with the fact the my trajectory as an artist/maker didn’t go the way I imagined. But with my hand on my heart, I don’t think I would be any happier showing art in a gallery than making something fun to dispense candy to kids on Halloween. I can only hope that every year is bigger and better than the year before.
Here’s to Halloween 2022!
Vintage Style by Tilly Gibson 