Costume: Monster Accessories

Many kids and adults love to go as creepy or lovable monsters for Halloween, so I thought I would cover a few accessories that you can make to create your desired monster look. I've gone as a demon several times. My daughter has gone as a cute furry green and teal monster. For any of these ideas, the options are fairly endless, so start with the basic instructions and experiment to get your desired look.

You can Grow Your Own Horns or purchase handmade horns.

Making them of course lets you control the size, color and shape of them. They will be completely unique, because you made them yourself. There are a few different types of polymer clays on the market, some are flexible and light (which could be good for kids and durability) and others are the normal. I know you can paint the normal kind of polymer clay, which again leads to more customization. Also, this means you can add glitter. You could blend fine glitter in with the clay, say for something like the stripes on the below pair and it should show up well. You can also dust the shaped and unbaked clay with pearl-ex powder, which will add a luster to it when baked. You might be able to mix the glitter with clear liquid clay and apply it over the shape too. You can control the amount of glitter you want too. If you want layers of sparse amounts of different colored glitters, you can apply a layer of glitter infused liquid clay, bake the piece. Then, add another layer and bake again. You can also make impressions for jewels, remove the jewels (unless they are a high grade that won't melt in the oven), bake the piece, and use industrial glue to adhere your jewels into the impressions. If you want texture, look at your different clay tools and small household items that might make scale shapes, rock textures, mesh textures, or any texture that you want. You can apply these textures to the shaped clay or thin pieces of flat clay...which is good if you have a texture sheet. You could also glue fabric to the baked clay horns. I'm thinking hair colored fur around the base, so it looks like they are growing out of your head.

If you have little monsters, sew horns out of fabric using triangle or wavy shapes. Stuff them with polyfill. Hand sew them to clips or a head band. I've made them out of green fleece, embroidered them with pink contrasting thread, stuffed them and sewn them to a head band. My daughter still wears the horns for dress up. If you stuff them with a lot of polyfill, they will stand up stiff, which is good. However, they will still be soft enough not to hurt your little one.

For attaching them to your head, you can either use the cord like shown, attach them to a head band or use industrial glue to attach them to barrettes or clips. I like using horns on clips because regular head bands give me headaches and full bands do weird things to my hair.

Monster Hands (Gloves)

I've never made something like this. These are incredible. I'm allergic to latex, so I couldn't wear these, but they are very spooky. If I wanted to be a monster and use gloves, I would buy pre-made gloves in a long length. I would hand sew pieces of fake fur to the tops and maybe fabric spikes the to top. You could also sew on semi-circles to look like scales. This would be really neat on a PVC pair of gloves.

You can make a Fur Tail.

I couldn't find a good place to buy one at or a good photo of a lush full colorful fur tail.

You can make a dino tail

or buy a (kid sized) Spike Tail from Mama Always Said.

Tails are something that can be used for monster and animal costumes. They are fairly easy to make. You can use any type of fabric. I made a spiked tail for my daughter's monster costume. I also made a dress out of green and teal monster fur and hand sewed pink fleece spikes down the back. Like with the gloves, you can add scales for a reptile or fish person look.

Try using durable fabrics like fleece, felt, fake fur, cotton or PVC. They are easy to sew with (You will need a Teflon foot for PVC. They are not expensive and will help the fabric smoothly move through your machine.) and available in many colors, thicknesses, patterns and textures (PVC). If you want to use something more fragile, like tulle, layer it over the more durable fabric, so it's stiff and the polyfill doesn't peek through after stuffing. You can control the size, length and shape. I made mine slightly curve up, so it wouldn't drag on the ground. I didn't put wire in mine, because the curve held it up and I didn't want it to poke my daughter. I also didn't make it super long, because I didn't want her to trip on it and I didn't want to see my work get dirty quickly.

With this, I should add a fur warning. Alex's dress got wet with water when she drank from a fountain. Afterwards, she messily ate Nerds candies. The candies were permantely infused into the fur. Granted, we don't have other kids, so no other kid was going to wear this dress, but it was still sad to see the candy in the dress. However, if you have a older kid (Alex was 4 at the time), you might not have the same problem, so feel free to use fur.

You can crochet some Monster Baby Booties for your little furry monster's feet.

These are adorable and baby sized, but if you are a crochet genius, I'm sure you all can figure out how to scale these for adults. If someone that can walk is going to wear these, coat the bottoms with a liquid rubber like Fiber-lok. It's made for coating the backs of latch hook rugs (which use yarn), so it should be find for crocheted yarn items. This will add some durability and water proof the bottoms. It's sort of like the stuff on the bottom of large character slippers.

You can make your own Fluffy Leg Warmers

or buy your own from The Sky Was Pink.

This would be my preference over actual fur booties. They are easy and quick to make. Fake fur comes in many hair lengths and colors. Most fabric stores should have an ample supply of fake fur at this time of the year. Like with the fabric spikes and horns, you could add some to these too. Just keep in mind the shape. Do not add wire to the spikes, as you don't want to injure someone else or yourself if you bump your legs into people.

After all this crafting, you deserve some Monster Cupcakes...

...or some Monster Brownie Pops

I had to add monster foods. These were too cute not to. Happy crafting!