B.I.D. : Tin Man
A couple of weeks before Hallowe'en, we watched The Wizard of Oz for homework, because the younger children had never seen the movie before.
Zeke had already decided on the Tin Man, but after watching the movie, the rest of us realized anew how perfect he would be. Zeke is a sensitive, little guy. He feels joys and sorrows very deeply, and if anyone didn't need a heart because his own was so big already, a la the Tin Man himself, it would be Zeke.
Zeke had already decided on the Tin Man, but after watching the movie, the rest of us realized anew how perfect he would be. Zeke is a sensitive, little guy. He feels joys and sorrows very deeply, and if anyone didn't need a heart because his own was so big already, a la the Tin Man himself, it would be Zeke.
I accidentally caught him blinking, but-- look!-- blue eyeshadow! I didn't have the patience to put on eyeliner, and I forgot the round, little nose and eyebrows, so the eyeshadow counts for something.
I followed this tutorial (same genius internet lady!) pretty closely, only since I didn't want to buy any special materials, I used pliers to bend a stiff metal coat hanger to help the upper half keeps its shape (bent back on itself so it wouldn't poke out), and instead of cutting off bolts for the chest details, I used (very short) flat hex bolts and nuts I found in the toolbox. I should have gotten a close-up, because they looked really cool. I used hand-me-down vinyl, spray paint leftover from last year, and when my mom heard I was going to buy flexible ductwork, she asked what it was and then pulled through with the perfect dusty amount that had been sitting in her basement waiting to be turned into a tin man. Hurrah again! Zeke's church shoes each had two huge holes on the bottom. Soaked and frozen socks aren't fun all winter long, so I spray-painted the shoes silver and will get him replacements (without holes!) from the thrift store. Expenses were a pair of thrifted gray pants, a set of three funnels from the dollar store, and hair and face paint, which altogether came to a grand total of $5.00. That's more than I'd normally spend on a costume, but it turned out cool enough for twice that.
A note on this costume-- definitely heed the genius woman behind this tutorial when she says to give it lots of drying time. Ours took part of a day outside and nearly five days in the basement. Tin must be a very wet metal.
5 comments :
THIS is amazing - nicely done!
Liana!
What a cool surprise to read your comment! Thanks for indulging me.:)
Hope all's well with you, Jeff, and the kiddos. It's hard to imagine them as anything but cute toddlers, but I bet the years since blogging (7?!) have brought big changes. Pre-teens! Wow. If you're ever in the area, give a holler and we can catch up for real!
WOAH! I can't believe Zeke's costume! It's incredible! He looks amazing!
Four exclamation points = four stars
(And I love that he even has a bowtie.)
How did you get his face so perfectly silver? I bought some special gold Halloween face paint for Judah and it looked pretty much like smudgy dirt. That was the other major disappointment in our costuming- that and Corynn's white hairspray not doing a great job.
This costume seems very hard to do- the ductwork fitting the pleather must have been quite a job. so impressive.
I bought a dollar tube of gray paint at Walmart and used that as the base, even though I knew it would look doofy. (It did.)
After applying the base, I was going to dust his face with glitter and shimmery eyeshadow, but then I found a tiny tube of silver face paint I had leftover from HIGH SCHOOL. It was labeled "shimmer," and sure enough, I had just enough left in it to add shimmer.
If I had to do it again, Amazon sells metallic gold and silver face paint; it's just expensive. I wonder, would a Hallowe'en pop-up shop would have a specialty item like that?
(And thanks! The genius tutorial deserves the credit. That really made it easy, apart from the hand-sewing to attach the ductwork. That was the only annoying part.)
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