Happy Halloween

Halloween is definitely one of my very favorite holidays.  An excuse to get all dressed up, pretend to be someone else and run around eating candy?  Sounds like a great idea to me!  My love of halloween surely goes back to my childhood days, spending evenings of the nights leading up to halloween creating magical paper mache masks with my dad, mom and sister.  We had so much fun, my dad loves halloween too and always made it memorable for us.  It wasn't so much about the candy (although that was a welcome treat) but about the time spent together, getting creative and letting our artistic visions come to life. 
I'm still just a kid at heart.  I love obsessing about the perfect costume, thinking about how it should all come together and watching my imagination come to life.  The last few years I've been thinking about making a Medusa costume.  In my mind's eye I pictured the way I would create it and how it would look.  Well, after discovering the perfect rubber snakes on a shopping trip earlier this month, I decided it was time to give my Medusa costume a chance to come to life. 
Here's how it looked when I first began:

The beginnings of Medusa!

I started off with eight black snakes, a long black haired wig, and various and assorted forms of wire and cable ties.  I cut the snakes in half and attached them in strategic places all around the wig, using the cable ties and floral wire to secure them to the base of the wig.  It was a time consuming process and I'll admit, when I was done it wasn't the picture of Medusa that I had imagined, but I decided it would do. 
For my face, I read about a technique to use fishnet stockings to paint over and create the look of scales.  I covered my face with powder, applied a thin layer of white face paint to the areas I wanted to look scaled, pulled the fishnet stockings down over my face and painted black face paint on top.  I wasn't sure the black was giving me the look I wanted, so I had some gold glitter face paint and used that on top of the black.  When I pulled the fishnet stocking off, the effect was definitely what I was going for.  There were some areas that I wished I had applied more of the gold glitter, but my forehead looked very interesting and had a scaled affect.  I put heavy eyeliner around my eyes and used some green eyeshadow and mascara to finish off the makeup. 
I debated and debated over what to wear.  I decided at last that I would not go for the classic Greek dressed Medusa but a more modern (comfortable) version.  Since my hair and snakes were black, I decided to just dress all in black and add my favorite black cape on top for warmth.  Really, the focal point of my costume was supposed to be the snake wig and makeup anyway so I might as well be comfortable.  In the end, I was glad I'd decided to go that route.
The finished look:

Striking a pose as Medusa!

I was happy with the outcome.  Most everyone who talked to me at the halloween parties we attended knew right off I was Medusa so I consider that a success.  And, I had a great time seeing the other costumes and being Medusa for a short time.  What a fun holiday!  I hope you all have fond halloween memories too.  What was your favorite costume you ever made or wore?  I need ideas for next year!