My Finished Hei Hei Costume!

How YOU doin'?

I know a lot of you already saw our big costume debut on Instagram/FB, but lets make this official:

Ta-daaa!

Or should I say, "Bu-CAAAAWK!"?

:D

John and I put these together in about 5 days, just in time to go to Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party at the Magic Kingdom last Friday.  

I've already heard from quite a few of you planning to make your own Hei Hei costume for Halloween, so let me show you how I made the rest of my outfit, and link to the things we bought for John. Ideally you'll have more time than we did, and can add even more fun elements!

The most important part is the hat, of course, which I've already shown you how to make. (And I've already seen someone finished her own! Woot!)

My outfit was basic color-blocking, so look for yellow/orange clothes on the bottom and and teal/green on the top:

 

If I wear this again I think I'll layer a bright yellow tutu over the shorts, just for extra poof and giggles. I found a great one on Amazon for $13, so I've got that on standby.

My feather collar is made completely from craft foam, with a little ribbon to tie it. I used 4 different shades of orange and yellow foam; the more colors you use, the better it looks.

Start with a bib necklace shape, sort of like this:

Ignore the holes; I eventually realized I could hot glue the ribbon instead of knotting it, hah. You'll also want to trim the sides to be only as wide as the ribbon strap; these are too wide, so I had to cut them down later.

Cut a bunch of thin pointed slivers out of your darkest color foam, and arrange them into a pointed V like this:

You want the middle point to reach just below your bra line, or midway down your torso. Then angle the sides UP, so you don't get a weird boob shelf. If you don't have boobs to get in the way, then never mind this bit.

When you're happy with the length and shape, hot glue the slivers in place.

Now build up with your other colors, layering them over top of each other:

When you reach the top, use your brightest yellow strips to wrap OVER the neck line edge, gluing them down on the back side:

This will give you a clean edge and help strengthen the whole collar.

Done!

The collar held up like a champ for the 8 hours I wore it, and I only had to adjust it a few times when the strap from my cross-body bag shifted it to the side. I really thought it'd be destroyed by the end of the night, but this thing went through rain, sweat, and abuse, and still looks fresh as a feathery daisy. YAY CRAFT FOAM.

 

You can really see all 4 colors in the sunlight.

My Boat Snacks bag - which doubled as a purse AND a candy sack - started as a $4 canvas bag, also from Michaels. I forgot to take a 'before' photo, but it looked like one of these:

I cut off the handles, then used the existing top hem to run a double drawstring through it. I tried hand-painting my design first, but didn't like how it turned out:

So I flipped the bag over and used my Cricut to cut new letters - which I stuck on as-is - and a new stencil for the sail symbol, which I traced and then painted in by hand:

The vinyl letters are just stickers, not iron-on, but somehow they stayed in place amazingly well. They're not even peeling! Color me impressed. The font is "Chalkboard," which is a free system font with your Cricut.

If you don't have a Cricut, though, hand-painting still works fine.

I used a wide teal ribbon for my bag strap, so the color would blend in with my shirt and hopefully disappear. John did the sewing for me, and since we used a grosgrain ribbon it was super strong - even when I loaded in 5 pounds of candy later. :D

The costume detail that literally no one noticed was my Alan Tudyk pin, but that's OK; it made me laugh, so that's enough. I made it with a little wooden scrapbook frame I found on clearance at Michaels, a printed photo, and a cut-up lid from a pack of tomatoes:

I painted the frame orange, then layered the clear plastic over the photo and glued them in place. (I was grateful for that plastic later, as it rained a few times during the Party.) I stuck a pin on the back, and et voila:

It's like a Hidden Mickey, only not hidden and not Mickey. A... Subtle Tudyk? Undercover Alan?

At one point during the night we were zooming through the crowd (we had to rush everywhere) and I called out, "I'm a leaf on the wind!" 

I was immediately informed it's still too soon. Noted.

For John's Tamatoa 'bound we bought these light-up eyeball headbands (which despite their terrible reviews worked great) and this holographic gold backpack, which we jazzed up with my beloved Tamatoa purse charm and some song lyrics cut on our Cricut:

(I can't for the life of me remember which artist made my Tamatoa charm - anyone know?)

The backpack is super tiny on John, but that adds to the lolz:

  I'll probably use the backpack myself in the future... after I change out those yellow straps, bleh.

 Next we bought a $3 purple t-shirt and used our Cricut to make a "Shiny" iron-on crab design from gold foil.

 

 Somehow this is the only front-on photo I have of John??

The real fun for John's outfit came after dark, when he turned on his eyeballs (which blinked back and forth) and put on all kinds of ridiculous purple glow-stick accessories:

He also had glow bracelets on each arm. It's Tamatoa's bio-luminescent look!

Considering how dark it is at the Party (that photo is taken in the middle of the street - it's THAT dark) I wished I had a bunch of glowsticks, too!

And finally, big shout-out to our friend Scott, who surprised us by showing up as ANOTHER colorful bird:

Kevin!!

I'll show you the rest of our friends' costumes in my actual Halloween Party post, coming soon. I found some SERIOUSLY Dizgeeky costumes, plus I have pretty photos from the party, parade, and new fireworks show. Stay tuned for all that! 

****

P.S.  I have this big "squeeze and scream" Hei Hei in my office, and provided you can keep you husband from using it to traumatize the cats, it makes a great desk decoration:

I like that it's nice and big - over a foot tall - and it's especially fun to photobomb people with (just stick his head in from the side) since Hei Hei looks like he's perpetually screaming, lol.

It's also less than $13 Prime right now on Amazon. What can I say, except, YOU'RE WELCOME? ;p