Coraline-Inspired Creepy Doll Costume

I love Halloween; it’s probably my favourite holiday. I agonized over what my costume would be this year. I knew I wanted my costume to be gory, I wasn’t interested in being cute— it was Halloween after all. Three days before Halloween, after a lot of searching, I decided to go as a Coraline-inspired creepy button eye doll.

Once I settled on my doll costume idea I gathered my supplies. Most of the items were things I already had—skirt, lacy top, liquid latex, spirit gum, fake blood, sewing kit, a black wig—but I had to go out and buy a couple of other parts—sunglasses, ribbon, extra hairpieces, and pantyhose. Then it was time to put everything together.

I used the pantyhose to make it look like my hands and feet were stitched on. I cut those parts from the pantyhose and sewed them back on with thick black thread. For the arm pieces I also cut the toes and crotch out of the pantyhose so they could be worn as sleeves. When I put them on for the costume I added fake blood to give it an extra gory look.

For the face and neck stitches I followed some YouTube tutorials and used liquid latex and tissues to create a prosthetic which I cut open (carefully). After adding makeup and fake blood I then loosely stitched up the openings.

The hardest part of the doll costume was the eyes. I did some searching and found a lot of people had used actual buttons, but I was worried that would be too limiting for my vision, but I came across one site where they used tinted lenses instead. I found a cheap pair of novelty Halloween sunglasses with perfectly round lenses. I removed the lenses, covered the outside edges with electrical tape and put modelling clay on the back edge so they would pop out from my eyes a bit. Then, using a combination of liquid latex and spirit gum, I managed to get the “buttons” to stay on my eyes.

I put on a black wig, lacy top with bows and a flouncy skirt to complete the look.

This was such a fun costume to wear (even if my vision was slightly more restricted then I would have like it to be). I kept getting double takes all night, especially when I was riding the subway. People wanted to know what was on my eyes, if I could see, what I was (although many people recognized it as something from Coraline!). The reactions were great, a lot of people wanted pictures and many people didn’t even recognize me.

I loved this doll costume, even though one of my button eyes kept falling off (good thing I brought extra spirit gum to the party!), and I couldn’t see very well. It was an interesting perspective and made for a great Halloween.

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