It’s almost Halloween!! But Halloween is here for me tomorrow (Saturday). I’m going to my friend Denise’s annual Halloween Costume Party and I am so excited!! I’ve actually got my costume ready early this year. Usually, I’m still making my costume up until the moment I leave and have been known to show up an hour late due to my costume not being ready. But not this year baby!

Well, I guess I shouldn’t brag just yet. Those of you who know me, know that I am into the whole sha bang with costumes and a costume just isn’t complete without my face make up. I always go scary and this year is no different. I’ve made my costume but the pièce de résistance is always my face painting.

This year… drum roll please… I’m going as … *dumm dumm da dummm* “Red Death”. Okay, okay I know that most all of you will have no idea who that is and where it’s from. For  full disclosure, I didn’t know about it either until I was googling for costume ideas.

Red Death is from the short story The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe. It was made into a movie in 1964 that starred the great Vincent Price as Prince Prospero, here’s a link.

Anyway, on to the costume!

First, I found this stash of satiny fabric at the bottom of the last box I looked in. Thankfully, I didn’t have to drive to town to get some. I checked out what Walmart had in the way of dresses for costume and found one, but I really didn’t want to pay $25 for for their rag so I took a chance on making it or finding a used one. I had looked at a thrift store and even tried on a red dress, but it didn’t fit. That left me with one choice, making one. No big deal, I’ve made my last 2. Here’s a little of how I did it.

I made my own ruffles out of the fabric to dress up the skirt. Just cut the strips one and a half or more times longer than the skirt diameter and baste one end and pull one string when done to make the ruffles and distribute them evenly. It’s really fast and easy. Then tack it on and sew it to the skirt hem.

Here I am trying to model it. No big mirror upstairs in the sewing room, I’ll have to fix that since I have more room now since my art studio is downstairs now.

You can see a bit here…

and I’m pleased with how it looks so far. The black corset is store bought but I’m going to gussy that up to match the skirt. I’ve wore it before with my Banshee, female spirit costume.

So here’s the corset before I beautified it, sexy no?

I wanted it to have a little extra splash of red to go with the skirt, so I added a little red under the lace like straps. This looked good, plus now I don’t have to wear a strapless bra! I just basted it in since it will only be one night and I may take it out for another costume.

Here’s what it ended up looking like.

So here’s the red sash I made to go under all the lace up ribbon part.

I really tried to just tuck this in under all the ribbon lace ups, but it didn’t work. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to take the lacing out and re-lace it. Sometimes go way out of my way to be lazy. hmpf. Never learn. I ended up removing all the ribbon lace ups and sewing  in the red sash. I can always use a seam ripper to remove it if I want to change it back to black or another color.

Here’s a tip if you ever lace up something similar with a unruly raveling ribbon (say that 3 times fast!). Just put some tape on the end, it worked much better like this. I cut off the small amount when I was finished.

Here is my plain store bought corset altered up, pretty huh?

Ta da! Here the headless model is showing you how it looks finished 🙂  I’m pretty happy with it. I think I could use it again for a number of other costumes like a vampire, or vintage prostitute, haha something like that. Anyway it’s fun. I always love to make my costumes, it ensures you that no one else will have one like yours.

Check back to see my pictures of my whole ensemble from the party! Happy Halloween!