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Adam and Barbara Maitland Couple Costume

Here are our Adam and Barbara Maitland couple coustme:

Adam:
10 Styrofoam balls, a Styrofoam cone, one glove, bicycle helmet with holes in the top, wire, tape, hot glue gun, cardboard, paint, black see-through fabric, toothpicks and pape mache.

In order to make his costume, I first started by taking the cone and fitting wire around it and securing it to the helmet. I taped the wire down also. It won’t stick to the Styrofoam but it will be tight. Then I took a glove and filled it with newspaper. I then fit the bottom of the glove through the hole in the helmet and secured it with wire. I had to tape the globe because paper mache won’t hold to the fabric. Then I cut cardboard to form the jaw line and taped it. Make sure to tape wrote around the cardboard so it stays in shape. The paper mache will get it wet and it could form differently. After that, I paper mached the entire mask leaving holes for the eyes. To make the teeth, you take a brick of Styrofoam and cut cubes, then shape the cubes into teeth and cut a slit up the center and place it on the cardboard, secure with hot glue fun. Take the see-through black fabric and cut to fit the eyes. Hot glue it on the inside of the mask. To get the stretchy textured look, use the hot glue gun on the mask and create lines. Paint over it. Then add detail. For the fingers, I used toothpicks to hold the eyes steady so I could paint them. After they dried, I hollowed out the back to fit his fingers.

Barbara:
Cardboard, wire, baseball cap with adjustable sizing, black see-through fabric, paint, and Styrofoam.

To create Barbara, I first took a baseball cap and cut the top out so that my hair could be seen with they mask. After that, I cut two pieces of cardboard for her jaw and lined it with wire and attached it to the cap. I then taped newspaper to the top of the mask to get the dimension of the mask itself. After that, I paper mached it. While it dried, I took a brick of Styrofoam and cut it in the shape of the tongue and painted it red with a deeper red line down the center. (I made the eyes at the same time as Adam’s eyes; the balls come in a 12 pack which was insanely convenient) I then cut cubes to make the teeth for the bottom. After that, I did the same thing for the top teeth except made them bigger. Once the mark was dry, I hot glued the teeth in place and painted it all.

Book of the Recently Deceased:
Cardboard hollow book from at store, paint, 1.5 yards of shoe lace.

I painted the one we used but you can just as easily print off a picture and paste it. I wanted this to be more personal, though. So I Drew it first, then painted it. I used the shoe-lace as a purse strap. I bought the hollowed out book because I wanted to use it to store Adam’s eyes, spray glue for any mishaps and my lip gloss. :)

Helpful hints:

Throughout attaching anything with wire, try the masks on. Try them on with every new addition. You need to make sure you can see and it is moderately comfortable.

We wore these costumes to Theatre Bizarre. It is a huge Halloween party extravaganza. Everyone dresses up and is entertained the entire night. When we got there, people immediately started asking to take pictures with us. I had never gone to this party before, so I assumed people asked for pictures all the time. However, apparently it’s not that common. We must have had our picture knowingly taken 30 times. Pretty much every 10 minutes someone approached us to tell us how amazing the costumes were. A few people said they were working at the party and heard from some of the acts about us and had to see the costumes. It was incredibly flattering to hear all this. It was a great night and we had so much fun with the costumes.

Adam and Barbara Maitland Couple Costume



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