#58: Happy Halloween: The Power is YOURS!!

Happy belated Halloween everybody! I hope you had a fun, safe night :)

I can't believe it's November already! I always like this time of year. My birthday and Halloween are at the end of October, and tonight is one of my favorite treats that I consider part of my birthday gift each year...Daylight Savings Time!!!

 

Last year I made up my Halloween costume character. I was Hero Girl, a female hero of color (you can see pics at this link). 

 

 

This year, I tossed around a number of ideas, but the week before, my husband jokingly suggested he be a certain awesome 90's cartoon character. Though he was joking, I totally took the idea and ran with it! Here's my inspiration for this year's costume:

"Captain Planet, he's a hero
gonna take pollution down to zero..."

But before that...

For my birthday my husband planned a day of food and fun. I got to try out Sky Zone in-door trampoline gym! It was SOOOO much fun, but equally exhausting!

Crepe Studio Breakfast

Sky Zone. What a blast!

Front-flipping!

Can't have a birthday without ice cream! (Or in this case, frozen yogurt at Cherry On Top)

Dinner in a train car on Sunset Boulevard

Thanks Honey!


Now, back to Halloween. I decided to be none other than the 90's cartoon hero fighting against pollution, Captain Planet! And I wanted to make my costume myself. I began looking online to envision Captain Planet's look, when I noticed that there are very, very few female Captain Planets! There are plenty of female portrayals of other male superheroes, and lots of male cosplay Captain Planets, but not female. That strengthened my determination even more to be Captain Planet!

Captain Planet's got quite an interesting look

I had a blue long-sleeve shirt, a black belt, and a pair of red shorts. Everything else I went on the hunt to either make or buy super cheap. So I went shopping at the 99 Cents Only store.

For his skin, I found a pair of light blue tights at Target on clearance for around $3 to go with my long-sleeve shirt. I also found some great blue and white face makeup at the 99 Cents Only store which I blended together to make a light blue tone.

Tiny peak of the blue makeup

I found a curly green clown wig at the 99 Cents Only store.

Hello!

I tried a number of ways to make the wig less curly (boiling water, ironing, etc), but it just wouldn't give up its intense curl. So at the last minute I found a short, mullet-like blonde wig at a thrift store on a half-off Halloween sale for only $1.50, cut the hair to give it Captain Planet's signature front curl, and spray-painted it with green hair spray I also found at the 99 Cents Only store.

Sneak peak at the final wig

Again, at the 99 Cents Only store (I'm beginning to think I should be their spokes-person!), I found a plain red t-shirt which I measured and cut the sleeves and the length with a dip in the center in the shape of Captain Planet's chest-area (shirt? skin? I don't know).

Marking where I want to cut

Cut!

I also drew out and cut the collar in his zig-zag pattern.

After Cutting

For the chest emblem, I took a large plastic can lid and covered it with a square of yellow scrap material I had and sewed the back edges together so it would be taut.

Doesn't matter how the back looks

Then I drew the longitude and latitude-like lines with a black marker on the front to match his, and sewed it to the front of the shirt.

The world

For the belt buckle, I cut out the buckle's shape from a plastic cover to an old daily planner I had...

Recycle!

...wrapped the same yellow material around the edges, and sealed it with fabric glue.

Wrapping the buckle

 I also used ribbon to add some loops to hold the buckle onto the belt.

Belt loops

 On the front, I drew the outline Captain Planet has (can't see it very well in the photo).

Belt buckle

The hardest parts for me were the gloves and boots. I didn't want to go out and buy red boots just for this costume, and I thought it up too late to order long red gloves online (I scoured the stores with no luck). So I decided to try to make them.


Initially I thought about finding red short gloves and long red socks and sewing them together, but the only pair of red gloves I found were $28. $28!? No thanks! After looking at multiple stores again, I could not find ANY long red socks. NONE!! I tried spray-painting white gloves and socks red...

Mustache gloves

...but I just ended up with a half-done mess when the spray can spout broke.

I happened to find ONE pair of fluffy red socks in the whole town, and remembered that I had been given some red bath scrubber gloves as part of a Christmas set which I still had new, so I had to make due.

I cut off the toes of the red socks...

Fluffy red socks

No more toes

...Re-stitched spaces for my fingers to go through...

~Making gloves~

...and slipped my red bathing gloves over the socks.

BAM! How you like me now, lack-of-long-red-gloves-and-socks town?

For the boots, I bought a stretchy red sweater at the thrift store on the dollar rack, removed the sleeves, and sewed the ends closed to fit over a pair of flats so it could look something like boots.

Removing the sleeves

My favorite, yet surely insignificant part of my costume was the ring! If you've never seen the show, there are these kids collectively called the Planeteers who come from all over the world and use special elements rings together to summon Captain Planet to save the day. (I think Captain Planet and Smokey the Bear would be friends). Though Captain Planet himself doesn't have a ring, I wanted one anyway.

"Water! Earth! Fire! Heart! Wind!"

Quick aside: This picture I found online cracked me up.

Planeteers grew up on... the Magic School Bus??

Back to the ring; I found these nifty ones on Etsy that gave me some inspiration.

I decided to go with Earth since it seemed the easiest. I found this gaudy ring at (where else?) the 99 Cent Only store, which I promptly took apart.

Before: Gaudy ring

The base underneath

I painted the base with fingernail polish, then added a smaller inner circle of darker green paint once dried.

Green base

Darker green circle

Then I drew the longitude and latitude lines using a pointy wooden skewer.

Once dried, I added a layer of clear nail polish to act as a sealant, and used a decorative glass rock to press on top and magnify the globe.

Simple Magnifiers

The result?

EARTH!

After lots of searching, trying things out, failing, and trying out other things, my costume was ready to go.

I pieced it all together, carefully applied the make-up and hair, and even spray-painted my eyebrows green. I folded under the edges of the shorts to make them look look like briefs (I used double-sided tape to keep fabric in place).

Here again is the look I was going for:

Fighting pollution!

And here's my Halloween costume:

Captain Planet, she's a hero!

I hung out with my sharp-dressed warewolf husband as we walked around Old Pasadena, 

An odd pair

...partied with a fellow blue sistah,

Avatar and Captain Planet...both here to save the ecosystems!

...and a legit Storm Trooper.

Wolfie and Stormy

(*I'm gonna take a risk here and be publically vulnerable for a moment. So this Halloween my body is "larger" than last year, which is totally not what I had wanted, but it's where I am. I was so excited about the idea of my costume, but I found myself quite leery of my confidence of wearing a skin-tight costume with nowhere to hide. As we walked through Old Pasadena seeing all the skimpy, cleavage-filled, underwear-like female costumes, I found myself getting even more self-conscious. All power to those who want to wear a barely-there costume, but I hated that I felt inferior for not dressing the same, or for looking thicker in my costume. But I found confidence in my creativity. So many people recognized my costume with excitement!*)

I hope you all enjoyed the night, whether you celebrated or not. Don't forget to be thankful as we draw nearer to Thanksgiving this month. And don't forget to set your clocks back!

And remember...the power is YOURS!

Recycle, kids.

 Until next time, blessings.