Halloweird: One Girl’s Ongoing Quest For Creative Costumes

There are two kinds of parents. The kind that will buy their kid any Halloween costume they want off the shelf and the kind that absolutely refuse to and opt to go the homemade route. Both have their pros and cons, both lead to glorious pillow cases full of Snickers and Starbursts. But only one means a higher probability of an entire life of creative, original costumes and a sense of personal accomplishment.

If you think Halloween is an excuse to dress up as a sexy hippie/devil/Albert Einstein, then this post is not for you. If instead, you see Halloween as a time to get your creative on, please continue.

My mom subscribed to the ‘make a costume with what we have’ philosophy– the same mother who would

later draw a goatee on my face when I insisted on being Fred Durst in 8th grade (come on, act like you didn’t have a Limp Bizkit phase). This forced practice of originality stuck with me and has led to some pretty weird costumes. But hey, at least they were my weird costumes and not just a purchase at Target away.

My costume flow really hit in middle school. By 9th grade, Limp Bizkit were so last year and I thought to myself “Self, how can I wear pajamas for an entire day?” Answer: Be a ‘Morning Person’ for Halloween.

By this point, I caught the costume bug and have been attempting to one up myself every year. Some costumes are simpler than others. Like the time I spray painted a cereal box black, attached it to the back of my shirt and went as a ‘refrigerator magnet’. Or the time I made a “Go Ceilings!” shirt and went as a ‘ceiling fan’.

Some costumes were a little more outside the box like two years ago when I decided to be Cash Cab. I wore all black and yellow and ran around asking people trivia questions all night with the occasional “Red light challengeeeee” chant.

But one costume has risen above them all. I have forever been immortalized on the internet as the Gum on the Bottom of a Shoe girl. Draping myself in bubble gum pink and attaching a shoe to my hood (by way of drilling holes through the shoe and sweater and tying them together) has turned out to by one of my smartest decisions to date. The costume not only oozes cleverness but apparently I wasn’t the only one who thought so. In the years since originally rocking this costume in 2006, Gum on the Bottom of a Shoe has been featured on WTFcostumes.com, the Huffington Post and even a little website called HelloGiggles.

Last year, I paid homage to one of my favorite childhood characters and knocked my Harriet the Spy costume so far out of the park that even Michelle Trachtenberg gave her stamp of approval via Twitter.. As part of a lifelong journey of being ‘that girl’ at the Halloween party, I continue to look past the Mario and Luigis of the world to create something completely my own. As for this year’s costume creation, I am not ready to reveal it to the masses quite yet. But I can say it is pop culture nerdiness at its finest and the most difficult part will be finding a snow shovel in South Florida.

As another Halloween draws near, we all start to get nostalgic about costumes past and nervous about how this year’s creation will measure up. While we all get prepped for another ‘what are you going to be?’ conversation, we want to know: What was your most original Halloween costume? Show off in the comments!

Images via Krangelstock