Creativity key to great Halloween costumes

By Lethbridge Herald on October 25, 2024.

Costume shop props assistant Patricia Jonzon displays a prop made out of sewn EV Foam mounted on a bicycle’s helmet this past week at the University of Lethbridge. Herald photo by Alejandra Pulido-Guzman

Alejandra Pulido-Guzman – LETHBRIDGE HERALD – apulido@lethbridgeherald.com

With Halloween just around the corner, many may still be looking for a costume idea while others are ready to go. But what should someone do to create their own costume if they choose to do so? 

Patricia Jonzon, costume shop props assistant at the University of Lethbridge, shared some tips on how to get a costume done with simple materials and creativity. 

“When it comes to building a costume, I think first you have to have an idea of what you want to go as, either a character, a thing or an animal for example,” said Jonzon. 

She said from there, usually budget is something to consider and around this time of the year, a lot of costume pieces can be easily found around thrift stores. 

“Maybe you’re going as Marge Simpson. You might need a green dress, right? So, you might go to a thrift store and you might find a green sheet that you say, oh, I can turn this into a dress, or you might find a green dress that’s already the shape you need,” said Jonzon. 

She said the next step after finding the clothing part of the costume is to look for accessories. In the case of Marge Simpson, someone might need pearls, blue hair and red shoes. But if the costume is of a character that wears armour, then the accessories may not be readily available and in that case, Jonzon said there is an option to make them. 

“When it comes to costuming you want to you want to choose something that’s within your skill level and sometimes low-tech things is just as good as going high-tech,” said Jonzon. 

When someone is creating something and they don’t know where to begin, Jonzon suggests watching tutorial videos on the internet and from there get the materials needed for their project. 

“It’s nice to see what other people have done. It gets the creative juices going. You can see what materials they used and how the process took place, and if it is something that you think can accomplish then you can follow their lead,” said Jonzon. 

She said that sometimes creating something from scratch might be daunting because you may feel like it is too challenging, but once you see the process you may change your mind. 

“Then I start researching materials. I usually want to know, OK, if I’m going to make armour, what is the best material to use? It is usually EV Foam (craft foam), and the nice thing about it is that you can buy it at the dollar store, so it is affordable,” said Jonzon. 

She said there are also thicker versions of the EV foam in crafting supply stores like Michael’s or people can easily order supplies from the internet and be able to receive them the next day. 

“And then I would take measurements. I would use a tape measure and I would measure the areas where the armour would be placed on. For example, I would measure my biceps, or if I was making a bust armour, I would want to know the size of the chest and putting it on,” said Jonzon. 

She said it is always a good idea to make a mock version using cheap materials of what you need for your costume, especially if you are using expensive materials for the final product like leather for armour. 

“You might want to choose cardboard or newspaper, or paper is a great way to kind of visually draw things out, cut it out, put it together and say, oh, it’s going to work,” said Jonzon. 

And when it comes to putting things together, Jonzon say the best way to make sure costumes will not fall apart easily is to saw them. 

“Sewing is always one of my favourite go-to, especially if you’re doing fabric because you can take it out if you make a mistake. If it’s too small or too big, you can take out that seam, you can redo it. There’s some flexibility to it,” said Jonzon. 

She said sometimes tape can hold things together while trying things out, in a mock piece for instance.

“When you are sure of what you want to do, you might choose to glue things. But I am one of those people that I stay away from glue if I can do it in a different way, because glue is one of those things that can get way out of hand really quick and hot glue is not actually a very strong bonding material,” said Jonzon.

She said that even though sewing is mostly done on fabric, there are other materials that can actually be sewn together and they hold just as well as fabric. 

“For an armour piece made out of EV Foam that needs to go around the arm, to be able to make it easy to put on and remove, you might want to attach velcro to it and in that case, glue might not work as well. You can sew through, but you can also glue to it. You could also put holes through it and you could tie it,” said Jonzon. 

And when it comes to props like a sword or a shield, Jonzon said EV Foam is the best material to use, not only because it is light weight, but also because it will be more acceptable than wood in certain places. 

“Foam is really nice. It’s really light, you can buy those foam tiles that you can put on your room floor and you can cut out of those. You can do quite a bit with it, you can actually shape it with a heat gun and make it do some pretty interesting things,” said Jonzon. 

She added that in terms of rigidity, foam can be either flexible or rigid depending on how many layers are put together. So, when making a sword one piece of foam might not be rigid enough, but once you add a couple more then it becomes more rigid, making it more realistic as well.

“Also a lot of props can be put together with things that can be changed or easily transformed, they can be reused, recycled or new and be painted or modified in a way that suits your costume’s needs,” said Jonzon. 

She explained that she has made a horned crown in the past where all the materials were purchased at the dollar store, painted accordingly, glued together and looked just like what was needed.