Halloween Costumes 101 {Day 28}

I am SUCH a fan of Halloween, I do love to dress up and am especially good at using things around the house to put together a costume in a jiffy. My mom is a whiz at the sewing machine, growing up she made us beautiful, elaborate costumes we refused to wear.

My younger sister Kate on the left is wearing my hand-me-down Mouse costume, and I am Buttercup from the Princess Bride 

Then I had my high school days of dressing up, thank the Lord of Heaven and Earth there was not Facebook then because if those pictures ever made it to the Internet, I would go into hiding for a few years. It was around that time you could basically wear lingerie with a hat and call it a costume. Which I did, I was a biker chick. Yikes.

Things changed a lot when I got to college and by the time I graduated, I was dressing like a nice Amish person on Halloween. Think fully covered, seasonal appropriate attire.

When I worked for Campus Outreach, most of the people I spent time with were college kids. I didn't have many friends my age aside from my fellow staff members who I loved, but sometimes you needed to branch out and meet people.

My roommate and good friend Ashley and I were super excited to be invited to a Halloween party hosted by the Young Adult/Working Professional group at our church. Both of us were single at the time and hoping to meet some cool guys and maybe some new girlfriends we could spend time with and not just talk about campus ministry.

Since it was a Halloween party, we rightly assumed that people would be in costumes. Being the resourceful, quirky chick that I am, I decided Ash and I should be Wall-e and Eve from the adorable Pixar movie that had come out that summer.

Here is a picture of our inspiration:

So easy! In a few hours, we had put together these get-up's:

We were feeling so cute and creative until we walked into the Halloween party (where we didn't know ANYONE) and were the only one's dressed up. Except for a guy wearing a red and white striped t-shirt who called himself Waldo. This is one of the funnier experiences of my life. I couldn't really sit down because I was wearing a very large box. Nor could I pick anything up because of my robot hands. Ashley couldn't hear anything because she was wearing a motorcycle helmet that covered her ears, so whenever someone asked her a question, I had to repeat-shout at her in order for her to understand. Since we were meeting new people and were obviously the source of some interest, this kept happening and Ash would turn to me and say, "What did he ask me?" And in reply I would yell into the side of her helmet, "HE WAS ASKING YOU WHAT YOUR NAME WAS AND IF YOU LIVE IN RALEIGH." 

One of the highlights of the night was when I was selected to bob for apples

This situation was made complicated due to two things:

1. I was wearing a box and couldn't lean close enough to the bowl to be successful. I kept bouncing back off of it. 

2. I had a bad cold and kept sneezing into the bowl of water, being congested and unable to hold my breath, I kept gasping for air and gurgling water everywhere. Nobody laughed or cheered me on, mostly just stares of dismay were happening here:

This story has a happy ending, I got one at the end. There's Waldo snapping a picture in the background.

I can hardly look at these pictures without laughing so hard I cry because y'all, it really was that bad. I haven't worn a Halloween costume since. 

Now that I have kids, I am loving Halloween and choosing their costumes, absolving myself of any need to dress-up myself. But if you need help putting something together thrifty and last minute, you know who to turn to!