Besides the fail-proof skeleton (which I’m thinking of dressing up as this year! it’s either that or werewolf, hmmmm) here are 3 other last-minute Halloween dress-up ideas for you.

 

1 SILENT MOVIE STAR

 

Not a scary costume, which I usually like to do for Halloween, but nonetheless fun to dress up as.  I at least went with a noir (black) color theme to give the night a little of the “darkness” it deserves.

I donned a black crushed velvet skirt and crop top ensemble and looked up photos on pinterest for the signature makeup inspiration.

I absolutely LOVE playing with makeup so this look was really fun to create.  I started by covering my eyebrows (as best I could) and drawing fake pencil-thin ones on much higher than my actual eyebrows are.  I used black eyeliner to make the outline for my lips (cartoonishly small & dramatic) and filled them in with black lipstick.

 

 

For my movie lines, I made a sign with black poster board and white chalk.

At one point growing up my sister really became enamored with old black and white silent movies.  Her favorites were the ones with famous silent movie star Rudolph Valentino (she thought he was a babe, haha).

With that memory in mind I looked up some quotes from one of his most well-known movies, The Sheik.  That’s how I decided on the wordage for my sign:

“Why – why have you brought me here?”

Something good and dramatic!

I also pinned up my hair with about 10,000 bobby pins (haha) to make it look like I had a super short ‘do.

 

 

There is a big street party every Halloween a couple blocks from where I live, so I took an adventure through there, just roaming around enjoying all the costumes and mystery that shrouds the night of Halloween.

When I first ventured out I had Greta (my German Shepherd) with me and people assumed she was a part of my costume (haha).

After I dropped her back off at home and ventured solo, several people I passed stopped me.

“Hey, what’s your sign say?” they all asked.

But when I held it up and made a dramatic face, the only response I got was, “uh, what are you supposed to be?”

Only one person I came across on the street knew.

“Oh! You’re an old Hollywood film star!” he said excitedly.

“I have a masters in film!” he told me.  “Wait, let me guess which actress you are!”

Truth was, I wasn’t going for anyone in particular, just “silent movie star” in general.  So I had to disappoint him by halting the guessing game before it could begin.

So despite the fact that this costume might be lost in translation to our current generation (or general population), it doesn’t make it any less fun to create and romp around in.

 

2 GRIM REAPER

 

Honestly, what better thing to dress up as on Halloween than the Grim Reaper?

I used to have a t-shirt that my step-dad gave me that used to be his with a grim reaper on it.  A very creepy (awesome graphic!) grim reaper might I add.  It was my favorite t-shirt because it was well broken into- very soft and super thin.

Since it was so many years old it was pretty raggedy and had a lot of holes in it, so I wore it mainly at home– but sometimes I couldn’t help but venture out in public with it on (after all, it WAS my favorite t-shirt, so I caught myself wearing it often!)

One day when I was wearing it out in public a man stopped me.

“Now why would a pretty girl like you wear a shirt like that with such a symbol on it?”

He seemed genuinely offended.

The t-shirt wasn’t gory in any way – but yes, I guess the reaper image was symbolic of death and I suppose that man did not like to be reminded of that.

Prior to that I hadn’t really thought about the image much – to me it was just a really cool COMFY old t-shirt.  And I like comfy.

Anyway, on to my costume:

I found this hooded cape while rummaging through a bin of quirky clothes at a vintage shop.  I couldn’t help but try it on, just for the hell of it.  It must have been a size XXXXL because it was HUGE on me.

But this would make a GREAT grim reaper costume though! I thought to myself.

Bingo.  Halloween costume for this year DECIDED! (which is always the most stressful part –deciding what to be! Haha)

I pulled some of the fabric together and pinned it in the middle so I wouldn’t be completely lost in it, but really it was perfect being so oversized, as it let the sleeves hang down dramatically low and the fabric of the hood ample enough to really cloak my head and hang over the sides of my face.

 

 

The funnest (yes I know that’s not a word but I like to say it anyway 😉 part about this costume is that I got to be UGLY.  Really try and make myself unattractive.

Usually, we’re so concerned about making ourselves up pretty for the world, it was such a liberating feeling to just embrace and go out in public looking ugly.

And I know that probably sounds weird.

Let me try to explain it this way: I know a lot of girls even on Halloween want to look cute, and do their makeup beautiful and glamorous even when they’re dressed up as something scary- but me, if it fits the part, I want to be UGLY.  A grim reaper with pretty eyelashes and a nice smile? Mmm, not so much.

I enjoyed not having to feel like I needed to look attractive or aesthetically pleasing for a night.  I could look in the mirror and think “wow, I look like hell.”  And that was a good thing. Haha.

So for the makeup I started with covering my face with white face paint, all around my eyes and covering my eyebrows & lips as well.

Under my eyes I smeared black and drew runny looking lines down my face so that it looked like the color dripped from my eyes.  On my eyelids I did red.

On my neck and chest I painted some shoddy bones, so I looked like a skeleton.  And on my hands I wore skeleton hand printed black gloves.

My step-dad made me a scythe for me out of wood that I spray painted black– which was great for a photo-op, but because it was so sturdy and actually a little pointy at the end I was nervous with the idea of taking it out on the town bar-hopping with me, for fear of accidentally swinging it around and banging into someone!

So I made a 2^nd (bar-safe, haha) scythe from a long stick I found in the backyard and some cardboard I cut into the shape of a blade that I covered with aluminum foil for the metal-y shine.

For Halloween night, one of my best friends from Atlanta visited me where I was living with my boyfriend (at the time) in Asheville.

My friend dressed up as Sandy from Grease and she really looked smashing!

This is my favorite pic from that night- a good ol’ bar bathroom mirror selfie.  I love the juxtaposition of our characters.

 

 

While we were out barhopping, it snowed!  It was the magical first snow of the season.

My BF’s house had no heat so when we finally turned in for the night we froze– and a leaky roof, so the next morning we had to put buckets all around to catch the melting snow that had started to seep through the ceiling.

Good times!* :/

*sarcasm intended

But playing the Grim Reaper for a night WAS fun!

 

3 ZOMBIE

 

A typical Halloween costume- but also a goodie.  I had never dressed up as a zombie for Halloween before because I just wasn’t sure how to pull it off, plus yeah, I think I was stuck on it being “too typical” (not that the Grim Reaper isn’t!).

But after deciding ”why not!”–I should try and wing my interpretation of this undead demon– and lots of internet scouring for ideas/inspiration, I combined some tricks I read to create this ghastly look:

 

 

One again, I reveled in the fun of making myself look so damn ugly! Haha

I created the look by boiling some water and mixing in organic tapioca flour, stirring until it took on a gooey gelatinous consistency.

Once it cooled enough, I spread this haphazardly over my face – covering my eyebrows, globbing some here and there and on my chest too.

While it was still sticky, I laid some pieces of toilet paper on top in places, then covered my whole face with foundation to give my skin a uniform flesh color (so you couldn’t tell I had toilet paper stuck on my face! haha).  This gave the textured “falling apart” look to my skin.

I smeared red eye shadow around my eyes and used black and greys to randomly mark up places on my face.

More of the tapioca flour concoction I mixed with some juice from a can of organic beets to give it a red color and smeared this around my mouth and dripping down my chest to look like blood.

I must say, I think I looked pretty gross!  Although GVB didn’t seem to notice anything different. Haha! (or maybe she just didn’t care! She knew I was under there somewhere!)

Drinking a beer in public as a zombie, ahhh, what a delight! Haha. Anything goes on Halloween night!

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Leave a comment and tell me, which of these 3 Halloween looks do you like the best? And what are YOU going to dress up as this year??!