Dallin wants to be a Zuko blue spirit kind of thing from some kind of show he watched at his friend Gavin's house. They don't carry that at Walmart. I googled it. Didn't come up on the shopping tab. I finally did find some one who sells them. He is an artist that will accept a commission to make one for you to the tune of hundreds of dollars. I am not that kind of mom. So I headed back to Walmart and bought a cheap little plastic hockey mask thing and a bottle of liquid starch. I cut up strips of news paper and sat in front of the computer looking at the Zuka guy and fashioned a mask that sort of resembled it. Newspaper soaked in liquid starch is amazing. It can bend and mold pretty well. It is very cheap and not to difficult although it does make a big mess and take quite some time. Several hours later I was ready to paint. It took a couple of coats and it definitely doesn't look like the one we could have had commissioned but Dallin said, "wow mom that looks good." That was good enough for me.
For the last couple of years Taylor has decided to go with food icons for his Halloween theme. He was Mr. Peanut, Chester Cheetah and this year he has got his eye on the Koolaide man. None of these costume can be found at walmart, or party land or any other store I could find. So two years ago I spent countless hours paper maching a peanut. It took several hours each night for a few weeks. I was frustrated to tears, exhausted from night after night of no sleep, and covered sticky bits of newspaper and yellow paint. But I finally came up with a costume he loved and I was proud of. I swore never to do it again. 12 months later I was pulling my hair out over chester cheetah. Chester required sewing which I am not a huge fan of. They also do not sell patterns for Chester so I had to make it up by trial and error. More error than trial by the way. But he was one happy little cheetah last Halloween.
So here we are to this year. Mr. Koolaide man. I thought it was a great idea, but only if they sold it in stores. They don't. We checked online and found a you tube video on how to make your own. You can also make your own Weed man - but we stuck with Mr. Koolaide. It did lead to a nice discussion on marajuanna and why anyone would want to dress up like it. Anyway Mr. Koolaide looked a bit difficult to make. I put it off. I continued to look on the internet. I finally found a man in Milwaukee who was selling his homemade Mr. Koolaide man costume. It was a really nice costume but it required a truck to pick it up, a drive to Milkwaukee and 200 dollars. None of those things are really a possibility for us this halloween so I went back to the You tube and watched the tutorial over and over again. My first attempt was a complete failure. My second attempt was working ok. Probably because this time I talked Rick into helping me. We had to wrap some cardboard boxes around some hulu hoops. Did that and moved on to step 2 which is use bed foamies to build the shape of a pitcher. First of all I didn't even know what bed foamies were let alone how to use them to make a pitcher. Someone commented that they were egg crate mattress. So I got mine out of the closet and cut it up. It didn't work. We experimented with everything we could think of to make the box into a pitcher. Paper, tape, batting, sheets, blankets and bubble wrap. Finally after a midnight run to Walmart for bubble wrap and duct tape I had a burst of inspiration. How about carpet padding I said. Rick said, "yeah maybe". So we drug it out cut it in strips and taped it on. It worked, kind of, we duct taped it on, wrapped the whole thing in bubble wrap and then in duct tape and decided to call it good. If it wouldn't have been 3 am in the morning we may have kept working. But we were exhausted. Also going around and around and around the box with duct tape had made me so dizzy I wasn't walking straight my head was pounding and I was threatening to throw up. So we called it a night and I went to bed.
The next morning I finally finished it up, I cut out a face and made frame to put on his shoulders to hold him up. I looked pretty good I thought. All went well until he put it on and could barely walk. That much carpet padding and duck tape have some weight to them, but he managed. We got it over to the school for the costume parade. Everyone loved it, he was ecstatic until he tired to get through the door. He had to turn side ways and kind of shimmy in. Didn't work to well, any way long story short he had to take it off after just a few minutes of the parade and it was raining for trick or treating so it didn't work to good for that either. So he pretty much got his picture taken in it and that is about it. I was going to store it for future use but it couldn't fit through my door to get it downstairs or in the attic. I refused to have Mr. Koolaide in my living room indefinitely so the trash he went. I was sad. Even though Taylor didn't really get to wear the costume he had one. I defied all the nay sayers (you know who you are) who didn't think I could make a Mr. Koolaide. I, myself, doubted for a while but everyone who saw him immediately recognized him. So Mr. Koolaide was a success and we have the pictures to prove it. I have to admit that I am pretty glad Taylor will be in Jr. High next year where they don't get to dress up- because I am done with food icons. It is back to Walmart costumes for us, at least if I have anything to say about it.
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