Making a Giraffe Halloween Costume from Thrift Store Shirt

I was never really into Halloween until I started working for "The Company". Now, Halloween at work is a smashing good time every year. It's also a time for me to exercise my creative prowess. It's wasteful to spend so much on a costume which is cheaply made and mass produced and you can only wear once. So for the past 3 years, I've made my own versions and tried to stay below a $10 budget.

2008: I was a bunch of grapes. I don't think much work was done this day considering I couldn't sit or type with cumbersome grape balloons around me. I bought a bag of purple balloons and used black electrical tape to tape them to my outfit of black leggings and a black sweater. yes, that is a real leaf attached to the headband.

2009: Snow White and the pirates. I bought this child's size Snow White costume from the Goodwill store for $6. The sleeves were too tight so I cut a few slits and expanded it with red fabric to look like the real Snow White sleeves. Using the same black headband from the grapes outfit, I sewed a red ribbon and attached it to the headband. Finished with red nails, red lipstick, already pale skin, and an apple. (pictured above: DN the pirate, JB the pirate, Snow White, RET the golfer, AM the go-go girl.

This year...

$3 shirt from Walmart

Flip inside out. Slice across and take off one sleeve. Cut about 3 inches off the bottom and use that fabric as the ruffles. I bought a kid's Medium because I liked the tighter fit but I knew there wouldn't be enough fabric so I used the fabric from the cut off sleeve and did a patch work of ruffles in the back.

T-shirt directions from PS I Made This

Dress rehearsal. Can you guess what I'm supposed to be?

$0.99 brown T-shirt from the Goodwill. The last step is to cut random patterns from the brown shirt and sew them onto the yellow shirt.

Ta-da! I was a fancy giraffe! This year's costume cost $4 and alot of work because I jammed my sewing machine with the thick thread and had to sew by hand. Hair and makeup inspiration from JessicaAnn.

Gorilla and giraffe.

We found our zebra friend in the cage.

We had an animal theme this year and everyone drew animals out of a hat. From left we have: a turtle, giraffe, gorilla, squirrel, penguin, zebra, lion, and flamingo. I think everyone did a great job, participation was higher this year, and many people made their own costumes. Loves it!

No celebration here at "The Company" is complete without a feast. I don't know what company catered but it might be better that I don't know.

Seafood pasta in a cream sauce. This had so much promise but was sadly too salty. Even so, I'd like to try and make it one day.

Lasagna. I didn't have any so no comment.

Peach cobbler. The crust was soggy and the peach tasted like it was preserved in a weird tasting syrup.

Tiramisu lady fingers. Yums. This was actually the best tasting item in this luncheon.

LOOKING FORWARD TO HALLOWEEN 2011!