Maker Halloween Costumes: The Green Goblin

Jack loves Spiderman and everything Spiderman related.  His choice to be a Spiderman Villain, The Green Goblin wasn't much of a surprise.  One of the neat things about his costume was that he wanted to make it his own.  He keeps on talking about becoming a film maker when he grows up, so reinventing characters is something we're seeing more and more of from him.

Image Courtesy of Fantasy Flight Games

When Jack first saw the Toby Maguire version of Spiderman a few years ago we had to turn it off because he was so scared of Willem Dafoe as The Green Goblin.  At first we talked about a robotic mask like Dafoe's, but anything we found was way too expensive (like in the $60 to $90 price range), so we decided to take another approach.

Image Courtesy of Movie Web

He wanted his costume based more in horror and less in cartoon, but still with a nod to the original comic character.  Here's what we came up with, how we did it, and how much it cost us:

The Face: We decided early on that face paint was not a good option.  We saw some half masks that looked closer to the comic Green Goblin, but it would still require green face paint for the bottom half of his face.  On a trip to Once Upon a Child we were able to find a used Zombie/Goblin/Warrior mask that Jack fell in love with for $8.99 - bonus points it has red eyes that light up.

The clothes: We went traditional with the clothes for Green Goblin.  At Value Village used we were able to pick up a men sized small purple t-shirt for $3.99 for me to cut into a shredded tunic, we were also able to get a green long sleeved t-shirt for $2.99.  We are borrowing a pair of purple leggings from a family friend,  purchased a pair of purple gloves for $1.99, and a pair of purple socks for $2.99.  For the belt we used a pirate belt that we had in our dress up box.


The Accessories: Jack really wanted me to build him a hoverboard on a skateboard or a flutter board, but because he doesn't know how to skateboard, I couldn't find a flutter board for less than $23.99 on Amazon (and knew I'd be carrying it all night anyway) we skipped it.  We purchased a brown leather purse to use as a satchel at Value Village for $3.99 and bought a set of pumpkin lights at the dollar store for $3.50 to make our pumpkin bombs.  For the light up pumpkin bombs I glue gunned in sparkled pipe cleaners (for $1.25) to be the lit ends of the pumpkin bombs and zipped them into the purse to keep them in place.

I am particularly happy with the 'light up' aspect of this costume as it will increase his visibility to cars on Halloween night!

Total cost of this costume to us: $33.54 tax included.


To check out Molly's Raven costume click here.

Elephant Song

I am a typical middle child.  At Halloween many of my costumes were hand-me-down, homemade costumes that used to be my older sister E's: Super Chicken, Clown, Bat Girl and a Cheetah.  As we got older and my parents were outnumbered by the addition of my brother we were "on our own" with costumes using our dress-up boxes, our closets, craft materials and negotiation skills for supplies to figure out what we wanted to be.

Some of my favourite costumes came from that time period, mainly because I chose them myself: Phantom of the Opera, a Butterfly and Marilyn Monroe.

Last year I used Halloween to really celebrate Molly and Jack's twinness by dressing them in corresponding costumes: Bam Bam Rubble and Pebbles Flintstone.  I enjoyed the joint costume efforts more than I ever thought I would and planned something similar again this year, figuring that this would be the last year that I could have so much influence over what they would be.  My plan was either: The Paper Bag Princess and Dragon or Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf.

My sick little Bam Bam from last Halloween.

We had every intention of going to an annual costume exchange to get costume supplies, but life happened as we faced a family birthday party, a work trip, a home renovation and ran out of time to participate.

So last night we went to Value Village to look for our costumes, because used costumes are still recycled goods and much more affordable.  I was thrilled at the gorgeous red and white dress and red cloak with white trim we were able to get for Molly for only $11.00.  We didn't have the same luck with Jack.  As we scoured the racks looking for something that would help him be a wolf, he was immediately drawn to a grey elephant costume.  Chris coaxed me into letting him trying it on.  He was ecstatic, raising and lowering his trunk and making elephant noises with gusto.  A couple passing by told us, "You need to buy him that costume!"  Jack grunted an elephant call and giggled in appreciation.  

We looked at a few other costumes, but nothing compared to my little grey elephant that was ruining my Halloween vision.  Molly later tried on a froggy costume, which was cute, but when we let her choose what she wanted to be, she ultimately selected Red Riding hood as her costume.*

Now I'm in search of a basket and a stuffed toy wolf to go along with Molly's costume.  My children are unique people who will rarely match.  I should have known my days of twin dress up would be limited.  Halloween is supposed to be for the kids and you can't put a price tag on your son's happiness, right?   Especially when the price tag is $5.99 in a used costume bin.  

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*Cause who doesn't like a beautiful crimson cloak?