Miscellaneous

Halloween 2025: Up!

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I’m taking a break from travel blog content to bring you Halloween content. And yes, I do know that Halloween was basically three weeks ago, but since I am always balancing 78 things, and doing them all at about 50% capacity, this seemed like the perfect timing.

As you already know, Halloween is my favorite holiday. It combines so many things I love: candy, DIY costumes, strangers, and drinking.

Since I have a 15 month old now (almost 16!!), I don’t do much of the drinking part, but I figured I could still capitalize on the candy and costumes and strangers, sort of.

I had a few complications for the amount of prep time required this year: namely, my 11-day trip during October, and the fact that I had 19 braid clients for the Marathon, which was also Halloween weekend. I still did my best by preparing and multi-tasking like all great moms do.

I started my Halloween prep in August. Prep always begins with the idea. I was brainstorming a lot of different themed outfits, knowing I needed to capitalize on the last year Toddler A wouldn’t be voicing his opinions about what he wanted to be. I wanted something unique, funny, and simple to DIY. I was very close to making us a family of Loraxes (Loraxi?) because a toddler tummy is just the cutest, and you all know my affinity for unitards runs deep. But when I realized it would be unlikely to get Chris to agree to galivanting around in a bright orange uni, I went back to the drawing board.

I finally decided on the movie, Up! The original plan was to make Toddler A Russell, the Scout, and then create the house for me, and for Ms. Jen, our nanny, to wear during the day while I was busy braiding, and have Chris be the old man.

However, as with all plans, there were hiccups. 1. I didn’t think Ms. Jen could push the stroller while wearing a box and 2. Chris refused to spray paint his hair, and gray hair is mandatory if you want to be the old man!

I switched gears. I decided to make Ms. Jen and Toddler A matching Wilderness Explorer costumes, in case she couldn’t wear the house while strollering. Then, since Chris wouldn’t be the old man, I decided I would! That is funnier, anyway.

I followed a few DIY tutorials I found online. This and this and this for Russell, and then this major one for the house. For Russell, I used felt I already owned for Toddler A’s sash and handkerchief, and I had to buy fabric for Ms. Jen’s. The badges were tedious to cut out, first the felt, then the badges, then glueing them all together (with an empty spot for the “Assisting the Elderly”/ Elliebadge Russell’s working on, of course). The advantage of the tedium was that it was a very easy multi-tasking process. I actually cut the felt backing for the badges and the badges themselves, AND glued it all together while on work calls. It required no concentration.

I wasn’t planning on writing a blog about this, or taking photos of the process, but our cleaner saw me gluing badges and said I absolutely HAD to document the process.

The house was another story. That required a lot of concentration, outside time for painting, measuring, and of course insane engineering. Not to mention, I had to find the right size box! I had the whole building staff looking out on recycling days to find me a box, and they found a perfect one from another apartment’s Ruggable delivery! After 3 coats of paint, I measured and cut the windows and trimming from felt I already owned, and then I threaded the shoulder strap ribbons with a plastic needle I had from wrapping string around braids. The ribbon I used was also from my braid supplies. Definitely DIY.

For the old man costume, I just bought the bow tie and glasses, and used Chris’s clothes. (See? He’s an old man at heart.) I borrowed a cane from someone in our Buy Nothing Group!

The final challenge for the costume was balloons. There cannot be an Up costume without balloons! But helium is hard to find, and expensive. Also, it’s a day-of task, and I was too busy braiding on Halloween to find and procure helium balloons! My friend told me about a delivery website for balloons, but they were $5 each plus delivery, and I knew I probably needed at least 8. That seemed like a steep price for a DIY costume we’d probably wear for under an hour.

Four days before Halloween, I had an idea: I would make a headband. I was convinced this was better because: 1. I already owned multiple headbands 2. The balloons would then be above the house, which was the whole point 3. It wouldn’t require helium and 4. A headband on Chris was a win, no matter what.

The night before Halloween, I sat down with balloons, a headband, and packing tape, and it worked!! I was so proud of myself for my idea.

Engineering feat not for the weak
after 1 coat of paint
after 2-3 coats of paint
after the trimmings were added
My hair-wrapping needle coming in clutch
Headband from WAP costume
I’m still so proud of myself for this idea

On the actual day of Halloween, I was busy braiding all day, but I did get to visit with Ms. Jen and Toddler A to see them in their matching outfits and it was just the cutest thing ever. My heart was bursting!!

Later that night, I took a one-hour break from braiding to go trick or treating in the building. Everything about our costume worked out perfectly! With the exception of the fact that Toddler A grabbed the glasses off my face every time he was near them, and it was hard for Chris to fit in the elevator with his box, especially if there were other kiddos in costumes in there.

We trick or treated for about 30 minutes (#toddlerlife), but the doormen said we had the best costume in the building, and that made it all worth it.

Ideas for next year?  For the moms out there… at what age did your kids insist on a specific costume and veto a family one?

special shoutout to my 1-year postpartum hairs in all directions
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Big City Living

Halloween Pub Crawl 2017

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Reporting live with the 2nd day of my hangover still slammin’ in my head like a terrible rock cover band at 3 am. I can barely open my eyes in the blinding light of the sun, and a credit card is missing from wallet, which means I OBVIOUSLY had an amazing time on the annual Halloween Pub Crawl 2017.

The Halloween Pub Crawl was not my original idea, I used to be a lowly participant on my best friend’s family’s Crawl. She comes from a big Irish Catholic family with 5 brothers and sisters, and innumerable cousins, so there were always enough people for an entire pub crawl just by inviting the family. Since then, my best friend moved away, and her cousins are less likely to hang out with me without her. (I’m still hanging out with her aunt et al. this upcoming weekend for the NY Marathon, more on that coming next week). Anyway, now that all of my friends expect a Halloween bar crawl, the organizing is left up to me. This year, Facebook invitations went out in August, as is necessary with our crazy New York schedules. I invited about 85 people, and made sure the group was open for friends of friends to invite people. Overall, we ended up with 103 invited, and about 50 people showed up. Not a single member of my family. Not bad!

For the past three years, I have been organizing the Crawl by myself and the last two years I planned it to be held on 14th Street, from west to east. This year, I decided to go old school to the Lower East Side. It’s annoying to get there on the subway from the Upper West Side, but #WorthIt because you only have to walk approximately 15 steps to get to another bar. Also, the looks we got on the subway were priceless. I was a gumball machine, but I think a little kid thought I was a clown and he had a minor breakdown when his mom told him to sit next to me.

5 days before the Crawl, I published the google map of our route, which included walking directions AND my own notes about drink specials. I tried to only pick places with major drink specials, since this was a marathon, not a sprint. I took out $100 cash and hoped for the best.

I won’t recount the whole pub crawl because it would be boring. Also because I remember less and less as the day goes on. But ultimately, we hit 11 bars over the course of 8 hours, and I had 16 drinks and bought three slices of Artichoke Pizza (LET ME LIVE!!) for $114. Not bad!!

This is the link to the original pub crawl map. And here are the bars we actually went to, not in exact order, necessarily, because my memory fails me:

  • The Grayson
  • Double Down Saloon
  • The Hairy Lemon
  • Mama’s
  • Ace Bar
  • Rue B
  • 7B
  • Bua
  • 11th Street Bar
  • B Side
  • HorseBox
  • Planet Rose

We started at the Grayson, and as usually I was running about 30 minutes late. I knew it would be an all-day event, so I figured it would be fine. Sure enough, we arrived and we were the first ones there! Grayson is a Wisconsin bar, which I did not know (Go Badgers!), but that worked to our advantage because they had $5 well drinks and an amazing DJ spinning live during commercials and time outs. There were a lot of time outs. I originally picked this bar because it had $5 mimosas, and I thought that would be a good way to easeee into the day of drinking, but instead I had one cider and switched straight to gin, which I would continue to drink for 9 more hours. We waited for 3 more people to arrive then walked one block away to the next bar, Double Down. Drink Count: 2.

Bar #2 and my memory already starts to fade. Why? Because the bar had 2-for-one happy hour, with well drinks = $6 (aka, $3 each), and the bartender was pregnant. Again you may ask, why does this matter? Well, because I think she was pouring all of the alcohol she couldn’t drink into our cups. But hey, I’m not complaining! We stayed at Double Down for over an hour because the drinks were incredibly cheap and because they had an awesome outdoor area and the weather Saturday was to die for! By the time we went to the next bar, we officially had 17 people on the crawl and it was in full swing. We wanted to switch to a bar with TVs so we could watch the Gator Game. HUGE mistake. Double Down has TV’s, but they only play porn. I’m not kidding. Drink Count: 5.

Anyway, we went to go to Hairy Lemon (the old Croxley’s), but we quickly found out by the overflow crowd on the sidewalk that Hairy Lemon is a Penn State Bar, and they are much better at football than UF this year. We vetoed Hairy Lemon. Luckily, this was the Lower East Side, and there was another bar literally next-door, Mama’s. And that bar next-door had 16 kangaroos in it. Again, not kidding. Only in NYC. We decided it was not an option to hang out with the kangaroos. They agreed to put the Gator game on for us, which was a mistake because we were already losing by nearly 20 points in the first 10 minutes. I decided to distract myself and put on a Kangaroo costume. Then people started to get hungry so we went in search of a bar with food. Drink Count: 6.

We did not find a bar with food. But we DID find another bar, Ace Bar, and they DID let us bring in our own food. A few people got slices of pizza. I did not. But I did have another drink! Drink Count: 7.

More people joined us on the crawl, and my memory of the order of bars gets a bit fuzzy here. At some point we went to 11th Street Bar, we also went to Rue B, and Bua, and we headed (RAN) to HiFi because Happy Hours everywhere were about to end (it was 7:15), but HiFi said online that their happy hour was until 7:30. I clearly needed to get my butt there, since I was only at Drink Count: 12.

Well, joke was on us, the rude bartender told us that actually their website was Fake News and their Happy Hour only went until 7. LAME. We decided we did not want to be patrons for this alternative facts bar, so we left. Drink Count: Still 12.

We headed to Horsebox, where I ultimately must have decided I was not at all done drinking, because instead of paying in cash, like I had been doing all day, I decided to open up a tab. Daddy Warbucks of Gin and Gingers, apparently. This was a stupid move for 2 reasons: A. I definitely did not need drinks 13, 14 and 15. And B. I hadn’t used my card all day, so of course I forgot I had put it down and I left my credit card there. TGFFP. (Thank God For Fraud Protection). My new card should arrive tomorrow. Drink Count: 15.

Slowly, people decided they absolutely NEEDED to sing karaoke, as people always decide after 15 drinks. So began the slow exodus across the street to Planet Rose. Planet Rose is the dingiest and grossest of all karaoke bars in New York, which of course makes it the best. Apparently, you can sing songs there for free during the week, but I’ve only ever been there during the weekend, when it costs $2/song. Luckily, I had some cash left since it was clearly necessary at that point for me to croon Fiona Apple while laying on the probably-bed-bug-infested couch. Drink Count: 16. Karaoke Count: 1 song. Dignity Count: negative.

I managed to find my way, by myself, to Artichoke Pizza, which I had sworn all day I would end the night with. I bought three slices, one for me, one for me the next day (I’m so smart, even when highly inebriated), and one for my boyfriend. Turns out he doesn’t even like Artichoke pizza, so I still have a slice in the fridge 3 days later. If my hangover doesn’t go away by tomorrow, I think I know what I will be having for breakfast.

Overall, a major success. We had almost 50 people. A friend from high school who I hadn’t seen in 15 years came out. My costume was super fun, and comfortable, and I will be posting a DIY on how to make it tomorrow for real Halloween. And best of all, I didn’t die. For all of you New Jerseyans out there, Happy Mischief Night!!

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Miscellaneous

DIY Costumes

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Halloween is Coming!!! Halloween is my favorite holiday of the year (except my birthday). How could you NOT like a halloween that is about candy, talking to strangers, and best of all: COSTUMES. I love dressing up, and I always have. If you have not already subscribed to my blog, you are missing weekly emails with CLASSIC #tbts of me in costume. I have dressed up as everything from a drag queen princess to a gypsy; you can see I have loved costumes since the beginning of time. At least the beginning of MY time. Also, I love love love crafting.

Growing up, I often had handmade or hand-thrown-together costumes, and I have been a fan of the DIY costume ever since. The best part about making your own costume is that no one else will have it. Anyone can go into a Spirit of Halloween popup and buy a sexy nurse or sexy army girl costume. But not everyone can put together a super-not-PC gypsy costume complete with crystal ball made of tin foil.

Which brings me to my next point: the point of Halloween is NOT to be sexy. October 31st is not an excuse to forego half of your clothes. I don’t know who decided that a costume is just leaving half of your outfit at home and putting on cat ears, but that will not cut it. Reminds me of the infamous scene in Mean Girl, the epitome of this:

There is a meme that makes its rounds on Instagram every year, about “sexy girl Halloween costumes vs. me,” and that perfectly personifies my idea of Halloween costumes. The weirder, the better. This all started in 2009 when my best friend and her sister (and I) decided to be Treasure Trolls. This was LONG before the Troll movie. We made the most amazing troll costumes ever known to man. Photos are coming. Get excited.

So why and how are my ideal DIY costumes 100% awesome but 100% NOT sexy?? Let’s break it down step by step:

The base of the costume must ALWAYS be a unitard.

This is a tradition that has been unbroken since 2009. The most epic unitard was definitely the 2009 treasure troll one, because it was see-through. And ordered from eBay. According to the reviews, it was supposed to be used for fetish play. As in… there was a hole. In a choice place. In fact, one of the reviews recommended wearing it backward… depending on what you’re into. You catch my drift. Anyway, after this year, we realized that the hole was incredibly convenient because a unitard made of pantyhose material is not easy to take off and on! Think about how tough it is just to put on tights! (Ladies, you know what I’m talking about.) When you are pub-crawling, you are most likely drinking in excess, which means you are taking bathroom trips in excess as well. That hole in the unitard came in handy. These unitards were especially epic because they matched our skin and people thought we were naked. The next year we used a unitard as the base of our costume again, and a tradition was born.

The next year we were a huge wolf pack. The fetish unitard only came in two colors, “nude” and “black” (racist, much?). Anyway, I chose to be the one black wolf in the wolf pack, like I’m the black sheep in my family. JK JK. Anyway, it was a hit yet again, with cutoff shorts and amazing hair and makeup to top it off, done by our friend who is a makeup artist.

The next year, I did a costume all by myself, and I knew I had a lot to live up to. I kept all of the preparations a secret! How could I outdo the Treasure Trolls from years past?? If you dream it, it will come. I became the World’s Tallest Oompa Loompa, and it was terrifying. Face paint, wig and all. I made the entire costume by hand, all the way down to drawing the stripes on my soccer socks, and buying long johns from Walmart.com. This was 2011, the year of the Halloween Blizzard. I was still living in Brooklyn and I knew I couldn’t miss the Halloween party in Manhattan, so I camped out at my friend’s house all day, scared that they would shut down the subways if I waited longer to go into the city. Painting myself into an oompa loompa in secret in a friend’s bathroom is NOT an easy feat. This look took some real determination, but I did it! For this look, I actually used Rit Dye to color my unitard the perfect orange-brown-skin-shade. Talk about dedication to the cause.

Around this time, for some reason, unitards became avant-garde. Of course, they were not avant-garde to us, but the addition of the word “morphsuit” to the Halloween lexicon was a gamechanger. Don’t get me wrong, we would never dare to purchase a morphsuit skeleton and that be the end of the costume. I like crafting too much for that. At first, they only had about 6 colors available, and we did our best with those. The first year we made use of morphsuits we were uni-corns. Get it? Unitard – Unicorn? I thought it was a great idea. We made horns out of Crayola Model Magic, and we painted and glittered ourselves into oblivion. Then we put on some false eyelashes. Then we added a tutu. TADA! Done.

This brings me to my next step to ensure ugly but classic costumes: DIY no-sew tutus! I originally learned how to do this from youtube, and I have mastered the skill throughout the years. I can now make a tutu with my eyes closed. Literally. I currently have 5 tutus in my closet. I will have 6 after I craft my current costume tonight (tutorial coming soon).

This brings me to the next and last step to ensure a not-sexy costume: stuffing your belly! You know how some girls diet so they can fit into their (lack of fabric) costume? I do the exact opposite! There’s nothing like covering your belly with some extra belly, so people can’t tell which part is natural and which part is just extra padding! It’s like they say in Miracle on 34th Street, “since I carry my own padding with me, I got the job, see?” Often when I am researching DIY costumes and looking at how to make mine better (pinterest has been a lifesaver here, and I’m not even a member!), I have noticed that I often pick costumes that are picked by pregnant women. This is extra fun, because when people think I am pregnant, and they see me drinking in excess, it provides for some great looks and comments. LET ME LIVE, OK!? When I began stuffing my belly for Halloween, I used pillow stuffing that you can buy by the bag from Michael’s. Last year, I discovered a much easier way, I stuffed an emoji pillow in my unitard! The stuffing stays together and it’s perfectly round!

The best part about making your own costumes is that you can repurpose the different parts for different things. I repurposed my wolfpack black unitard to make it a bee unitard by making a new last-minute tutu. I have used my yellow unitard to be a Minion and a Care Bear (Funshine Bear), and Winnie the Pooh. I’ve used my blue unitard to be a Unicorn and a Smurfette (terrifying, really). I’ve used my silver unitard to be the Tin Man and a Hersey Kiss. It’s all about repurposing and #BallinOnABudget.

I wish I had this blog years ago years so I could have shared my ideas and steps to make my costumes.

My costume for this year is a surprise, but considering I was supposed to be in a big group costume that only fell through last week, you can be sure I will be repurposing a few items from my costume box! (Yes, I have a costume box… it takes up valuable closet space in a New York apartment but it’s #WorthIt.)

I will be posting a DIY blog specifically for my 2017 costume next week, after the big reveal this weekend at the traditional annual pub crawl. I hope you guys like it!

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