Dressing up for Halloween...

...as a giraffe in a homemade (or home-painted) costume after you've made the neck~head~hat. Buy a skirt at the thrift store and grab a t-shirt from the rag pile and paint spots all over similar to that of an African Reticulated Giraffe, using industrial spray paints and cheapo acrylic paints in the process and after you've sprayed and spilled paint from the front garden, through the garage to the art room floor.








Begin by getting up early enough to glue in the head liner, thus getting glue all over your hair when you try it for size, and thus having to wash the glue out before you head to work.


Second, slip on your work clothes, beige-ish to match the giraffe head/neck hat and pull on the hand painted reticulated skirt.

Now time for the giraffe head/neck hat. Lift carefully up, up and up without hitting the ceiling and gently place on your head. Thank the dear Lord for yesterday's inspiration to cut out triangles of heavy, really heavy cardboard using a Dremel tool with an abraisive cut off wheel, then covering the holes with two layers of tissue paper and paint and ...well nevermind, it's a long story.

Pull the paper mache counter weight down and affix with belt tied tight.

Finally slip the hand painted reticulated inside-out t-shirt over neck/head hat and slowly, softly pull down around all that cardboard. What a tricky bunch of engineering. Next time you should begin several months ahead rather than several days, but oh well, that's just how you do it.

That's it, except for the make-up and frankly, I'm so tired I'm going to bed!

It's hard to teach anything to hyper little kids on Halloween while dressed as a giraffe; a very, very tired giraffe.

Kudos to the husband for support, humor and photos.