Fancy Trash! The Fanciest, Cheapest, Easiest Costume for Fancy Ladies

October of last year (2012), I had been very busy.  My best friend’s wedding was the weekend before Halloween, and on top of that, I was very busy with a 2 week long Halloween event at my place of employment.  Needless to say, I did not have the time, energy, or disposable income for a Halloween costume. Besides, my husband and I had not made any plans to attend any costume parties or pub crawls that required a costume.

With about 4 hours notice, my husband suggested we go to a local bar’s Halloween party to see a few bands. I agreed, but did not want to go without a costume!  (My husband was satisfied with a plastic mask…  I was not!)

My sewing/crafting room in my house is usually packed with supplies, but with no patterns or enough fabric, there wasn’t much left to sew with. “Ok, what else do I have?”

Trash bags.  I had trash bags!  and TRASH!

I got to work making the head dress. I washed a bunch of wrappers, plastic bottles, and aluminum cans. I grabbed a coffee filter, loaded it with hot glue and sprinkled in fresh coffee grounds like one would with glitter. After gathering the random (clean) garbage, I started gluing the pieces to a headband I had in my craft stash.  Voila!

Earrings!  Of course fancy trash needs fancy earrings!  I dabbed hot glue onto tissue wads and glued them to earring posts.  Done!

My garbage bag needed a yellow twisty tie, so I took a length of wire and sandwiched it between two strips of yellow ribbon (also in the stash).

The garbage bag was a little rough to put together. Fortunately I had the non rip kind of bags and that really helped. I cut the bottom of the bag and duct taped it around my waist. I cut arm holes and reinforced the holes with clear packing tape.  I put my arms in the holes and packed the bag with crumpled newspaper and polyester stuffing. I used the yellow “twist tie” to tie the bag around my neck.  (I also reinforced the neck cinching with some clear tape, but not too tightly!)

Under the trash bag top, I wore a black skirt with black leggings and black high heels!

I wore my trash bag top with pride and received lots of complements!  There was sadly no contest at the bar for me to enter, but I might have won if there was!  This is probably one of my favorite costumes ever, and I didn’t even work that hard on it!  (OR SPEND ANY MONEY!!!!)  Plus, what a great way to recycle, right?

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