Halloween Update 2: Wicked

I'm not quite sure when I started the tradition of doing more than one costume per year for Halloween, but here was the second! My sister recently saw Wicked in Chicago, so the Saturday before Halloween she got the fabulous idea of us dressing as Glinda and Elphaba for an upcoming party. One week is not much time to pull off fabulousness, but we gave it a shot!

The Elphaba dress was from a Burdastyle pattern. If you haven't discovered www.burdastyle.com yet, you must check it out! It's an open source pattern network--meaning people can come up with fantastic stuff and then post it for anyone to download. Since we didn't have the time or resources to tackle something more authentic, I found a pattern for a Leg O Mutton top, and added a skirt to it. Luckily I had some black crushed panne velvet in my stash. It was super simple to make after I scaled the pattern up a bit, took out the inset, and made it gathered all the way across the front where it attached to the skirt. It's a great pattern and I can't wait to make myself a top from it. Her broom was $1 at Shopko, and I think she found her hat at a discount Halloween store. (Her makeup, by the way, is Ben Nye--PLEASE, if you're painting your face, buy the good stuff--it's really not that much more expensive and looks so much better!)

My costume is more of a mish-mash. My sister (again) did a fantastic job of restyling an absolutely horrid wig I bought for $7 at Shopko. I thought it was a total loss, but she put it up on perm rods, boiled it, and it came out in perfect ringlets! The skirt and corset are actually from a Bo Peep costume I made years ago--I made a new white shirt to wear underneath, then made a petal skirt to wear over the top. (The party we were going to was in a barn--a real one--so I wasn't about to wear full-length foof!) I ran around the petal edges with a serged rolled-hem in metallic thread, and my sister then glued rhinestones to the edges to mimic the look of Glinda's dress. My crown she made from a crystal beaded garland found in the wedding section of Michael's, and my staff is a spray-painted dowel with a Christmas tree ornament attached to the top.