We like to have family costumes that follow a theme each year. My son loved his Baba Yaga house from last year, and wanted to re-use it with a twist. This lead to our decision to have a Wizard of Oz theme this year. My son was the house that squished the Wicked Witch of the East, My daughter was Glinda the Good Witch, I was the Wicked Witch of the West, and my husband was the Scarecrow. I don’t think that my costume as the Wicked Witch or my son’s costume as the house should count for the costume contest this year (I made the house last year and most of my costume was repurposed stuff I already had), but I did make the majority of Glinda’s costume and the Scarecrow’s costume this year, and I think the whole group of costumes work well together, so I wanted to share pictures of all of us, and submit Glinda and the Scarecrow as my official contest entry.
To make Glinda’s costume, I started with a dress my daughter already owned with a sequined pink bodice. She likes the dress, and wants to keep the dress, so I made shoulder arm poofs held on with elastic out of sparkly tulle, sewed and basted on a pink cotton underskirt from some stash fabric, and made a tie on sparkly tulle overskirt that can be easily removed. She wore a petticoat underneath for skirt floof. It was freezing on Halloween so I made her wear a pink shirt underneath. The staff is a long tube of silver fabric with a cardboard tube inside. I sewed a fabric star I made on top, and stitched on some sequins. The crown was the hardest to figure out. In the end I decided to laminate some fabric, then cut it to shape, and add glitter glue details. It was far easier than I thought it would be, and I love the way it turned out.
For the Scarecrow I started with the mask. I took two old burlap bags that used to hold pinto beans and sewed them into a vaguely head-shaped bag. Then I added eyeholes, and sewed on a nose and mouth from some scrap fabric I had. I tied it on with rope (loosely so as not to strangle my poor husband). The hat was store bought, because I thought it would be too complicated, but after seeing it I probably could have made one. For the shirt, I started with a green men’s long sleeve shirt. It wad a v neck and completely the wrong style, but fortunately I had some green scrap fabric that matched it really well. I sewed a placket (which I also sewed to the front of the shirt) and sewed corn husks to the placket which I shredded to look like hay. I also made 2 cuffs with elastic to hold the on with more corn husk hay, and tied it with a rope belt. I thought I could get away with buying brown costume pants, but they were so cheap that all the seams slit immediately, so I ended up having to sew them. I added patches out of more scrap fabric afterward, and made separate brown cuffs with corn husk hay for the bottom of the legs. The corn husk hay shed a lot, but honestly that kinda works for the scarecrow so it was fine. My husband had a blast startling trick or treaters who didn’t realize he was a person in costume rather than an actual scarecrow.
Dorothy’s House with the squished witch was the easiest, I just glued back on any loose bits from a year in the attic, got some striped pajama bottoms, and sewed elastic onto some ruby slippers that I found in my parents attic. It was particularly convincing when my son sat down, and they really enjoyed handing out candy to people who didn’t know they were a person in costume too.
My Wicked Witch of the West costume was also pretty easy. I already had a black button up shirt, a long black skirt, and a witches hat. All I needed to do was make 2 black arm poofs (held on with elastic and removable, like my daughter’s) and paint my face and hands green (getting the face paint off was the only hard part).
It was a very enjoyable Halloween and lots of trick or treaters really loved our costumes. We got to have lots of fun interactions with people, and really that is the best part of the Holiday.
