Broke-Ass Halloween Costume Idea: Christmas Tree
Kind of.
Halloween is just around the corner and if you’re like me, there are many reasons not to buy one of those pre-packaged slutty halloween costumes for “women.” Not least of them being the insane price points – seriously, $75 for a couple swatches of fabric that make you into a “cat”? Let’s just not…Instead, each year I prefer to get crafty with my bad self and come up with stuff that I hope is original and doesn’t accidentally fall off over the course of the night’s shenanigans. Last year, I was a Christmas tree. I made my costume in a last-minute frenzy (as usual) and ended up with a pretty sweet costume that didn’t take a ton of time or cash-ola to make. Who cares if it’s Halloween; let’s buck tradition and skip right to December! Here is how it happened if you are interested in such things:
What you’ll need:
-a green, frilly dress (I got mine at Beacon’s Closet in Chelsea, but there are a few locations all over the city).
-2 boxes of Cracker Jack
-needle/thread
-colored construction paper
-safety pins
-a couple bobby pins
-string o’ lights (I lucked out and found a portable string of mini-lights with a battery pack at K-Mart for like 10 bucks in the Christmas section – because you’d better believe that K-Mart already has a Christmas section before Halloween. Come on, this is ‘Mercuh!)
-candy canes (also available in the ludicrously early K-Mart Christmas section)
Instructions:
String Cracker Jack into rows using needle & thread. Safety pin to green dress in various places, so that they hang down. Or, if you’re especially ambitious, you can string it across horizontally (but that would require a much longer string of Cracker Jack and more hand-eye coordination than I have at my disposal).
Cut colored construction paper into circles. Depending on your craftiness, you can either just leave them as plain circles and safety pin them to the dress, or you could make designs & patterns. I personally got a little carried away and made one that looked like Grover from Sesame Street.
After pinning on your “ornaments,” start pinning on those candy canes and if you were able to find a portable light pack, go ahead and pin that sucker on too.
For your final touch, you’ll want to cut a star out of yellow construction paper and pin that to your head (that’s what the bobby pins are for – for the record, I do NOT condone safety pinning something to your scalp).
Because of time constraints I didn’t do this, but a friend suggested making some “presents” to go along the bottom of the dress. I finished off the look with some shit-brown tights and some equally shit-brown boots.
Voila!
You’re a Christmas tree. Just take it from me, and try not to sit down, or else you’ll have smashed up Cracker Jack and candy canes all over your ass. I guess it was a good thing that dress only cost $8, huh?
Photo Credit: costumecraze.com