DIY Medusa costume

Dress, a pillowcase dress with prints similar to scales.
Fabric remnants €5.

There are many interpretations of Medusa. Sexy Medusa, scary Medusa and my version, "Euro-store" Medusa.  I refuse to spend huge amounts of money on costumes, when it is so much fun to come up with cheap ideas on how to create a costume.  It gets my creative juices flowing. Problem # 1,  Make a head full of snakes, #2 make a snake body or something similar, #3 be comfortable in it. #4 win that best costume price or else! Ha ha ha.

I will never forget one of the firsts halloweens I celebrated with my kids in our new home.  An old neighborhood from the 50's with all its original homeowners.  Average age 70-90.  I was so excited about creating my kids Mario and Luigi costumes and shopped all over for overalls, white gloves, bought fabric to make their distinctive red and green hats, and painted mustaches.  They looked perfect and we went trick or treating, and soon realized that none of my neighbors, knew who Mario and Luigi were.  Door after door, we knocked and they would ask us what they were, and I told them, and they would have this "????"  look on their face.  One of them even asked me if they where dressed as M&Ms.  Sigh!  I was heart broken, all that effort for nothing! Sniff, sniff.

Really.  They were identical to the characters!

Well… Back to the present.  Medusa costume…First, shopping for toy snakes, so I could glue them to a hat and be done with the head full of snakes.  No luck, there aren't that many craft stores around here.  I concentrated on the body next.  Wasn't sure what to do, so I bought green tights and spent several days painting snake scales with a sharpie marker and acrylic paint.  

€2 at the chinese store around the corner.

Later I remember I had some fabric that looked a bit like scales and made a tunic with a train our of it.  Simple sewing pattern. I looked for a pillowcase dress and made a Medusa version out of it.  Leaving the back much longer than the front.  For a video sample click here and for a written tutorial click here. Or you can google your own pillowcase tutorial.  

By the time I was done with Halloween, a few months later, for some reason all the stores had snake and python prints on everything, but why not when I needed them?  Such is life. So maybe, you already have something in your closet with snake print, use that.

Euro Store, 0.75€

I think these were 4 for 1€

One day visiting yet another Euro "chinos" store, I saw this really funky yarn that looked like green sausage links, and lightbulb went on, this would be my medusa head.  I braided the yarn and wrapped it like a turban, but if you like you could glue then to a cap.  With some additional snakes made from pipe cleaners, and lots of eyes glued to the green links, I finally had a head full of... "inchworms"??  Well let's call it, a kid friendly Medusa.  Too cute actually, so my make-up had to be a bit more scary.  

€5 of green sausage links at euro store.  Bag of eyes €1, pipe cleaners €0.70.

Once again, I used the makeup I already had, so the greens are not so bright. If yo have a store that sells halloween makeup use that, the colors will be much brighter.  Happy Halloween.

And here it is… What you think? Would my old neighbors recognize the character?

Braided my hair and put on the hat and pulled the braids through the holes
 for an integrated look.  Makeup, my own everyday eye shadows.