Halloween Party Prep 👽

I made this. I’m excited, ok

Yes, it’s mid-August. But a friend just sent me a meme about dressing up like Ken for Halloween, and I realized THE CLOCK STARTS NOW.

Last year, Matt and I had a Halloween party and it was my favorite for-fun party of all time (weddings = serious, meaningful, not-for-fun but still fun, aka not included in this ranking). The only other great one was maybe the only “party” party I went to in high school, which was robot themed. The basement was covered in tinfoil and it was busted by the cops. Here’s proof (below - I am the one with a checkered belt, not moving my body seemingly at all). And this year, I want to do it again.

Last fall, I was riding high on having recently completed a costume designing job for a nearby summer camp’s performance of Moana. That job ended up involving more prop creation than I originally expected (namely Tamatoa’s shell and claws, and Te Fiti’s on-stage transition from a lava monster to a flower mountain). Something about making more of the props than I had the previous year (Annie’s props are like a golden locket and a bag of dirty laundry) gave me a feeling that I had made a bit more of a complete world for the play, and I was eager to try it out in a party format. I am not shy about taking liberties with the social appropriateness of dressing up at Halloween, so why not do it to my whole apartment?

My plan for the party all centered around my desire to make and wear a Victorian-esque nightgown for my costume. The heart wants what it wants. And, I had been watching Crimson Peak once about every three months since it came out (the costumes are so good. The plot is….fine). I talked it out with Matt, and he agreed to my general vision of “a vampire’s house.” Vampires and white nightgowns are as classic a pairing as brooding, orphaned, land-owning mystery men and penniless, orphaned, optimistic young female leads. So, like every vampire in at least the first 1/3 of the book, everything was going according to my plan.

My general goal for the party project was to use as many recycled or repurposed materials for decorations as I could. I had heard about something called “thrift stores” and was curious to learn more. JK I was a hardcore thrifting devotee at that point, and this was a plausible justification for going 2-3x a week. I started sometime in early September with three guidelines for my search: 1. colors: red, gold, black, 2. materials: lace, jacquard, anything silky, 3. knick-knacks: Victorian-esque (which in my mind was floral / ornate / dainty) in dark colors and preferably creepy, and bonus points for things made of red glass. Candelabras were also on my radar.

To go broad-strokes with it, here’s what I ended up doing. I happened upon four or five curtains and tablecloths that were various shades of maroon / blood-red, and I decided to turn them into something approximating wallpaper or tapestries along the walls of the living room. I also came across a lot of fake flowers, but in bright yellows and blues, so I decided to dye them into the general colors of a bruise. The knick-knacks primarily materialized in the form of candlestick holders and one beautiful, unsettling Pomeranian statue that my brother lovingly bought for me (now my classroom pet, much to my students’ chagrin). I put as many candles out as I could without feeling like a hazard and lit every room with soft lamps at knee-level so the rooms felt shadowy and (hopefully) slightly creepy. And, to “decorate” our basement, I projected Bram Stoker’s Dracula on the main wall, which was also a stylistic inspiration, as boiled down into this one scene (I don’t know why this version is French). It was a bit of a decorating cop-out but it was great - the colors were creepy and it was fun to watch bits of it here and there during the party.

Maybe I’ll go into more detail about it in another post, because my purpose here is to begin documenting my ideas for this year. But, I wanted to give you an overview because the spirit of the project is the same - to use thrifted or repurposed items when I can, and to do as much as I can to make a full-feeling environment. So, for now, here are some pictures of the finished product, as well as my nightgown. My costume ended up being “a woman who was just recently bitten by a vampire,” and it was a fun clothing item to design and make on the fly. Note to self for this year - TAKE MORE PICTURES OF THE ROOM 😑 The last pic was taken after the overhead lights were turned on again, but I wanted to show what the curtains ended up looking like (as well as three vampire guests).

I REPEAT. The overhead lights were on in the last pic with the three vampire bros having a little witchy meeting. I can’t have you thinking that’s what the party looked like. Ugh.

Anyway! Now! On to this year’s theme.

Matt and I have been throwing around a couple of ideas for the past few weeks, trying to find a sweet spot between practicality, fun, and recognizability (we both wanted to do a Beau is Afraid theme but know that it wouldn’t be a crowd pleaser to feel like you’re constantly being watched). We have decided: the theme will be

👽 ALIENS 👽

I like this theme because it is a 180 turn from last year’s theme, which was more ornate, moody, and warm colored (candlelight and blood red). For this one, I’m picturing silver, neon green, and lilac, and iridescent and/or translucent materials, and maybe some strategically targeted blacklights (literally nothing takes me out of a party mood more quickly than knowing I’m under a blacklight. It’s horrible and makes me feel like I’m in middle school with every flaw broadcast for the world to see [sewing = I’m constantly covered in threads that then turn bright white and also yeah, I’m just a mess]. Party throwers and bar owners —> DON’T DO IT). I’m also interested in working in some squishy and kind of disgusting textures, which seem central to the Alien franchise and the creepier side of aliens in general. I’m still deciding which route to go with it - do we go for a 1950s space theme, more like Asteroid City? Do we go cute? Creepy? Laboratory? Space ship? 2000s?

But, probably as already indicated by the colors and textures I mentioned, I think I’m mostly leaning towards Men in Black / Alien (if those two can be considered similar) with as eerie and creepy a feeling as I can get, with a bit of a 2000s feeling. Maybe with a little bit of Matrix thrown in there, too. And maybe some Star Wars. Ok, obviously still figuring it out. Here are some inspo pics as I do so (obligatory Joaquin inclusion):

General ideas so far: I’m thinking silver and purple-green-iridescent fabric on the walls (this part seems easy enough, and I’ve started looking for the cheapest possible silver lamé fabric that I can buy in bulk). I’d also like some “statement pieces” that incorporate light so that we can avoid overhead lighting to heighten the creepy mood. For this, I’m currently trying to figure out how feasible it would be to have bright, bubbling water feature pieces with aliens suspended in them. I will explain!

An idea from Google images (click 4 link)

Here’s how it all began. I started wondering if I could create a wall of green, glowing bubbles along the main wall in our living room. I like the idea of having moving texture in the decorations, almost to mimic the idea of data moving by or experiments being conducted. I found this page which gave a lot of helpful options for making bubble walls, and started looking into the supplies for at least a section of “wall” that’s made of bubbles.

Basically, it’s a polycarbonate multi-wall sheet (aka, a plastic sheet with two layers, like you’d use for the roof of a greenhouse or a little garage shack thing) that’s attached on the bottom to something called an air stone, which is used to bubble up the air in fish tanks. That air stone is attached to an air pump, and when you fill the sheet with water and turn on the pump, the bubbles flow up. You can then put LED strips on both sides to color the water. I also started looking at what you can do to make water glow - apparently tonic water shows up super bright turquoise under a black light. Could be useful for making drinks…

Click for the link to the site that has this. I haven’t really looked at it yet but LOOKS COOL

At first glance, it looks like the polycarbonate sheet might be a little expensive, but I might stop by a Home Depot to see the prices in person. I feel like it probably will be too expensive. There’s another issue with the rectangular air stone; the ones I found that are big enough to make a sizable wall piece all require air pumps that are 7W+, and those get me outside of the cheaper price range that I’m looking for.

So, the new idea is to use the same concept but apply it to a cylindrical container to get a bit of a test-tube / laboratory experiment thing going. I’m not super sure so far, but I’m thinking I could use this air pump and air stone combo at the bottom of a tube to create a bubbling cylinder, which I’ll light with LEDs. I ordered the pump, so I’ll do some tinkering and see what happens. Ideally, I’ll get some kind of alien creature to float and drift in the middle of the cylinder, which led me to my second Google search rabbit hole.

Here’s a general idea of what I’m thinking, but less cute and more gross (click for source).

I started thinking about what kind of alien item would be good to have floating in the tube, and I started thinking that the texture of the item will be pretty important. I want it to be movable and floppy so it moves around with the bubbles and looks like it was or would conceivably be alive at one point. As I began picturing this in my mind, the first texture I thought of was Creepy Crawlers. I don’t know if you made them when you were little, but here:

Basically, it’s goop that you pour in a metal mold and then bake. The resulting texture is slightly firm, and springy and gummy - a potentially good wiggliness for a floating alien.

So, next step: how do you make the goop that they used for it? And how can I make or find a mold big enough to make a 3D alien with it? It’s likely this will lead nowhere either because it’s cost-prohibitive or too technically difficult, but maybe it will? And I thought the things I found along the way were kind of cool and possibly useful for future project. So HERE WE GO.

After a little Googling, I found two very useful sites. One is Dr. Goop’s site, which gave me some info on Plastigoop, as well as beautiful pics of the old packaging. I had no idea people have been Creepy Crawling since the 60s. It also shows a very nice picture of someone named Mike (is that Dr. Goop’s true identity?!? If so, the caption is a little self-congratulatory. But I’ll withhold judgment for now)’s Creepy Crawler-dedicated workspace (pictured here), which made me smile.

Googling “Plastigoop” led me to this little forum page, on which I learned that it’s the same substance as is used for fishing lures (plastisol), which makes complete sense, and which confirms my belief that it could be useful for mimicking a living thing in water. I started looking for the exact kind of goop to use, and I realized this is something I’ll need to search a little more for. At some point in the near future. Tick tock tick tock tick tock.

Quick important side note I learned along the way - apparently a variation of plastisol is very effective for screenprinting t-shirts etc. It looks like once you heat-set it with a press or heat gun, it turns into an opaque, rubbery coating that stands out particularly well against dark backgrounds. Here’s some on Amazon that seems pretty good. I think this might be the kind of rubbery printing that I particularly love on t-shirts - the durable, textured kind. Maybe something to try sometime down the line. If you’ve used it, let me know in the comments - it sounds pretty, pretty, pretty good.

Back on the Plastigoop Creepy Crawlers to round out this post. Just for fun, I tried finding some of the tin molds on eBay, and it looks like there are a lot. I was hopeful that all of my problems would be solved by the ready availability of an affordable, cool-looking huge alien mold. Ha! haha. But instead, I found some pretty random and cool tins from the 60s on. They look like what you’d use to make tough cookies in a basement. I also came across something called “Metal Molder,” which was apparently like Creepy Crawlers but with molten metal?! The girls version is called “Precious Metals” - lol, ok. However it all looks VERY COOL and I want to try it.

That’s all for now. My plan is to continue watching alien-centered movies for visual inspiration, and to try out the bubbling water column / test tube thing when some of the parts arrive (still to be found: big, water-tight, cheap see-through tube D:). If you’ve got any thoughts or ideas, drop a comment - brainstorming is welcome :D

What’s the opposite of “Greetings, earthlings”?

🖖 Bye for now🖖

PS This will be me when the party is over and I need to return to real life. BUT WHAT WILL THE FAVORITE BE??? Stay tuned