Dress up isn't just for kids

I always loved dressing up. When I met my future husband we were 17, and I was so excited to finally have a companion as crazy as I was! We dressed as Dracula and the bride of Dracula for our May Ball. It wasn't a fancy dress ball - that's just how we roll.

For a long time I had all these creative ideas, but was frustrated by my lack of sewing ability. A glue gun and some Fiskars crafting scissors were my best friends. I remember making a funny cupcake costume for a Halloween party and burning the fingerprints off all my fingertips from making all the tiny sprinkes and putting it all together. It is quite impressive just how much you can do without actually sewing a stitch.

When we moved to America Halloween became our favorite holiday. We attended a big party each year and I revelled in the fancy dress element. Everyone would ask for a month beforehand what we were going to be, and I tried to outdo myself every time.

My daughter wanted to be the White Witch one year. I ordered a cheap dress from eBay and braved the fabric store for supplies. I made the whole outfit above without sewing! The fur cape is glued all around to the velvet underlay, and yards and yards of sparkly trim glued to the gown. Of course, that made me want to create matching costumes for the rest of our family. I was able to buy a lion costume for our youngest, but it was a hard sell to my 4-year-old persuading him he wanted to be a wardrobe! :)

A funny story now - my son knew the story of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and was happy to dress up as Edmond. But because he was raised in America, he kept telling people his costume was "Edmond coming out of the closet" - we got some very confused looks from bemused adults!

I managed to persuade my long-suffering husband to dress as Mr. Tumnus the faun. He was a lot less happy when the furry pants I made required last-minute glue gunning to the crotch! I bought some size 11 women's clog shoes in a thrift shop and we cut away the heels to make a convincing cloven hoof.

We had so much fun trick or treating in our costumes and after that I knew I wanted my costuming adventure to go further. It was time to learn to sew!

At first my sewing skills were basic. This is an early costume I made - basic trousers and a sheepskin jacket, and the large banner with his army's symbol on it. I was still largely crafting rather than sewing, but it gave me more scope to explore my designs.

My sister asked if I could come up with a Poison Ivy costume for her work fancy dress party. I was on the case! Thrift shops provided me with an ugly pair of boots and handbag as well as an old dress. I hit up the craft stores for fake ivy leaves and other supplies.

I had an absolute blast making the different pieces, and when I was done I kind of wanted to keep the bag and boots myself! My fingers were bleeding from sewing through the leaves, but it was a really fun project.

The boots were designed with hot glue and pieces if satin cut around the shape of the boot.

Halloween was approaching, and my daughter and her friends had new requests - I started their costumes in July because they had grand designs... Elsa and Anna from Frozen for the twins, and an evil Alice and Wonderland costume for my daughter. She showed me the computer game her character was to be based on. It was tricky because none of those costumes had patterns yet - so I had to come up with something by myself.

The Alice in Wonderland costume was really fun. I bought a white rabbit toy online and felt very mean cutting it open to turn it into a handbag. I sewed crosses over the eyes and lined the bunny in red... gruesome!

With all the excitement of creating the kid's costumes I didn't have so much time for our own outfits - so my husband got a rather naughty SNL based costume, based on Andy Samburg's character from Lonely Island's 'dick in a box' song. To keep this PG I won't show the 12 inch pop up member I created from one of those spring snakes you can buy in fake peanut cans in joke shops :) It did give the host a scare when she asked what was in the box, though!

The next year's requests came flooding in. My son wanted to be Sir Didymus from the movie Labyrinth. I always loved that movie, so I begged my daughter to let me make her a Sarah gown from the ballroom scene. She wanted to be an arctic fox. So we compromised - a masked ball fox costume that could double as a Sarah costume too :)

I went a bit crazy this time. I decided if my son was going to be Sir Didymus, he needed an Ambrosius the dog to ride. So my costuming madness found me buying pipes and other odd supplies in a DIY store and somehow making a 5ft long giant sheepdog. My son had a blast riding it around for trick or treating, and it was strong enough for 3 kids at a time!

That same year our dear friends the twins had different requests. One wanted the new CInderella movie dress, again before a pattern was released, and her sister wanted to be a werewolf princess. Happy to oblige, kiddos!

The kids costumes all completed, I set my mind on something impressive for our adult revelries. I wanted to be Ursula, from The Little Mermaid. It took 10 hours per tentacle to stuff, sew, and attach the buttons on each of my tentacles!

My husband resigned himself to yet another bare-chested costume, as I turned him into King Triton. Not many men can pull off a mermaid tail! Our dear friend came along too, in an Ariel costume I made for her. We had such a fun night!

I knew it would be hard to top those costumes, after all, they had taken months to complete. But the following year I felt like a return to my British roots, so I decided to honor my childhood favorite comedy show - Black Adder.

Each sleeve of my Queen Elizabeth dress took 12 hours of hand sewing to create. I sewed individual pearls and trim all over it. The crown was my first attempt at jewelry, and I bent wire with pearls and red glass beads to try and make a tiara.

Making the ruffs was the hardest part. Turns out, there aren't many tutorials out there for Tudor ruffs. I muddled my way through.

I promised my husband I wouldn't embarrass him in the next year's costume. Also that he would be warmly dressed. So - I created a Jon Snow costume from Game of Thrones. The joke was on me, though - I barely got near him all Halloween for all the young women wanting to take photos with him! Definitely his favorite costume I think.

We moved cities that year, and no longer had a fancy dress party to attend. Boo! The kids still wanted costumes though. My youngest, ever the most inventive, declared he wanted to be an evil tree.

Words cannot describe how much I did NOT enjoy making his evil tree costume. It turns out chicken wire, papier-mâché and the sheer scale were all a bad choice for me with my rheumatoid arthritis. My fingers were agony during the project, and I was very grateful for my Fiskars precision wire cutters as I fought my way through the roll of wire.

My daughter, now a gloomy and gothic teenager, decided she wanted to be a Bone Fairy. Not the tooth fairy, oh no, this one wanted to buy your femurs. Creepy child. I made her a pair of bony wings from a giant skeletal bat, and a crown and mask from various other skeleton decorations. She was happy with her gruesome new look.

So that took me up to 2019... and we all know Halloween was a total wash-out in 2020. I can't wait to see what costumes 2021 has in store for me... if you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear! Remember, anything you can imagine, you can create. Just go for it!