Thursday, November 1, 2012

Cardboard Costume Competition!!


Have you met Amber?

Amber loves cardboard. And makes cardboard stuff. And is AMAZING at it.
This was her Halloween costume:



Whoa!


I'm popping in quick tonight to tell you about the cardboard costume competition she's hosting on her blog The Cardboard Collective. Forgive me for being this late to mention it - I was so swamped this October with costumes, birthday parties, annual medical appointments for every possible body part of EVERYONE in the family, and teacher conferences. Plus they asked me to volunteer to help out during Jenna's Halloween class party. How to say no? I am addicted to classrooms. So, even though I could barely keep track of which of my own biological children I needed to pick up at which time from which school, let alone help other children not related to me, I agreed. And spent a lovely morning running the candy-corn bowling station getting to know Jenna's friends. And Jenna's Supergirl costume, which she wore to school, suffered a zipper malfunction in class - yes, the zipper broke. Not the stitches or the fabric - the entire zipper opened up and got stuck midway. I had to forcibly rip it fully open and break off the zipper pull just so Jenna could get out of her costume later. And then we had to pack everyone in the car to drive to JoAnn to buy a new zipper, then seam-rip out the old zipper and install the new one. No matter how many days before Halloween I actually finish our costumes, there's always some histrionics to be enjoyed at the last minute. This would never had happened with a cardboard costume, I kept thinking.

Anyway, that was my Halloween! Fun. How was yours?

So back to the Cardboard Costume Challenge - the deadline is tomorrow, Nov 2, but all you need to do is submit photos of your cardboard costume to Amber's flickr pool, and the judges will pick the winners. There are fabulous prizes of MakeDo kits, courtesy of MakeDo Japan. Hurrah!!!! And I get to be one of the judges!! Actually, I feel very inferior because the other judges are actual cardboard artists, not small-time amazon-box-transmogrifiers like me. Meet the judges here, here, here and here.

And while you're visiting Amber, check out her how-to posts on adapting a sewing pattern to cardboard and making various costume elements out of cardboard, like bug eyes, petticoats, general textures, facial hair and mermaid tails. Did you think cardboard meant just cereal boxes? Hahahahahahahaha! Think again! There is a reason why we revere it as the #1 Crafting Medium In The Known Universe. 


4 comments:

  1. I can't imagine making a costume like that out of cardboard! Wow!

    Ack! about the zipper! Glad you got it replaced in time!

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  2. I think you're right about a zip never breaking in a cardboard costume. I'm not sure how you would install a zip in the first place!

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  3. Ikat,
    Ambers costume was great. I noticed on her blog coments, she sent out a challenge to you for next year. Hope your girls allow for cardboard next year.

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    Replies
    1. Anonymous -I was a wimp this year (and every other year), and sewed our costumes. In my defence, I made a cardboard sword last year as a costume prop but yeah, I still feel like a traitor.

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