DIY Life

Yep, our friends at Holidash even have you covered this Halloween. Whether you're a lover of DIY or a lover of TV (or perhaps a lover of John Krasinki, which is ... umm, every girl I know), Holidash has a tip for your 'The Office'-inspired costume. Which character will you be this year?

Read on!

It seems everyone I know has a love/hate relationship with The Office. I'm on the love end of the spectrum, perhaps because I'm living vicariously through the show. After all, I work in my pajamas at the kitchen counter, so wouldn't it be fun to channel my inner office employee for the day?

For me, that day is October 31st, where I plan to trick-or-treat with a few friends as our favorite characters from The Office. Want to see the list?:

Jim Halpert
Wear: Harness your Halloween look with 3-hole punched Jim, or go as everyday Jim with a long-sleeved Oxford shirt and tie.
Carry: A messenger bag and your heart on your sleeve.
Finishing Touch?: A perfected Stanley impression and a few emergency packs of Jello.

Pam Beesley
Wear: An outdated work outfit, preferably button-up and longer skirt. Oh yes, and loafers.
Carry: A 6-pack of Mixed Berry yogurt.
Finishing Touch?: A half-up permed hairdo and plenty of harnessed flirtation.

Michael Scott
Wear: A business suit and receding hairline.
Carry: An unhealthy affection for your boss, Jan Levinson. And, of course, keys to your Sebring convertible.
Finishing Touch?: Add a spare head on your shoulder to harness Michael's Halloween look.

Dwight Schrute
Wear: A yellow, short-sleeved Oxford shirt with a mismatched tie, brown slacks and glasses.
Carry: A grudge against your nemesis, the 3-hole punched paper, Jim Halpert.
Finishing Touch?: Pit stains. You didn't grow up on a beet farm for nothing.

Kelly Kapoor
Wear: Anything from Bebe.
Carry: A perfectly-coordinated clutch purse to match your well-manicured nails.
Finishing Touch?: Grab a random guy and make out with him. You know, to make Ryan jealous.

Iron Man gear is all the rage these days, thanks to the popularity of the new hit movie. We recently went to my nephew's fourth birthday party, and as a gift, he received an Iron Man mask and an arm attachment that shoots discs. Ah, the weaponry a four-year-old apparently needs....

If you've got an Iron Man buff in your household, why spend the money on a store-bought mask and arc reactor when you can build one yourself? Details after the break.

About a month or so ago, a set of Lord of the Rings amigurumi made by Sammi Resendes (Craftster user Artoo1121) and her boyfriend were prominently featured on a number of sites. The dolls were unusually detailed, with full cloth outfits resembling their film costumes, painted "embroidery," and tiny polymer clay accessories like helmets and staffs. However, there were no instructions for you to make them at home.

Since then, however, Sammi has posted free instructions for how to make the Fellowship of the Ring in crocheted doll form on her blog, Geek Central Station. There are several patterns:

• The Hobbits and Gimli
• Aragorn and Boromir
• Gandalf and Legolas

The hitch? The clothing patterns aren't free: they can be purchased from the Geek Central Station Etsy shop for $7. That price seems reasonable to me, given how much work went into them.

In the meantime, amigurumi lovers will want to keep an eye on Geek Central Station: Indiana Jones is the latest character to join the fun, and a line of Star Wars dolls has also appeared, with some patterns available for purchase. Sammi says the cast of Futurama will be next! [via]

The advantages of full skirts are obvious. They spin and twirl in a delightful way, and have been in style for the last few summers, usually in the form of a ruffled peasant skirt. Even when they aren't fashionable, they can be useful for all kinds of dance (salsa, flamenco, swing, modern, belly), as well as for costuming.

If you have basic sewing skills, they're incredibly easy to make. There are two popular ways to create a very full skirt: make a circle skirt, or make a gored skirt with wedge-shaped panels.

To make a circle skirt, in the most simple terms: draw, on fabric, a circle the circumference of the intended wearer's waist, then another circle as far outside of it as you want the skirt's length to be. (If that doesn't make much sense, think of a "bull's-eye" pattern.) The result is a typical circle skirt. The interior circle is the waist, which will need a waistband, and the exterior circle is the hem, which will need to be finished.

Getting the best possible results is a little more complicated than that. For more circle skirt tips and tricks, as well as everything you need to know about gored skirts (and a few useful pattern links), please join me after the break.

Yeah, yeah, Halloween is so last month. But we figure that not everyone is interested in the winter holiday rush, and furthermore, posting solely about winter holiday topics stands a pretty good chance of making all of us writers feel exactly like retail workers do by December 18th (never, ever, ever wanting to hear a Christmas song again). Most of the best Halloween costumes don't hit the Internet until the first two weeks of November anyway, and if you want to win some costume contests next year, it wouldn't hurt to get started as soon as possible.

Thus, it is incumbent on me to point out this totally awesome Dwight Schrute bobblehead costume over at Incredible Stuff I Made. Dwight is the strange, uptight young salesman played by Rainn Wilson on NBC's hit comedy series The Office; he has a bobblehead of himself on his desk. Who wants to be plain ol' Dwight-the-fictional-person for Halloween, when you could build a costume that involves an oversized head and a bobbling mechanism?

The problem with writing about holidays on a DIY site, particularly one-day holidays, is this: by the time the best new information pops up on the Internet, the holiday has been over for at least a few days. So, what do you do when someone writes about their complex, creative Halloween costume in November? You hope that some people have costume parties to go to on New Year's Eve, that's what.

Instructables user Nicemag, Nicole Magne, created a tutorial for her complex 2007 costume: Kali, the Hindu goddess who can be variously and sometimes contradictorily seen as both a destroyer and a protector. It's not an easy thing to build.

You can read more about how she did it after the break.

Every week, the sites Knitting Pattern Central and Crochet Pattern Central post new free patterns that they've heard of or that have been sent to them. Several dozen patterns are often posted each week, and sometimes it can be tedious to look at them all to find the good ones... so I've done it for you. Then I've categorized them, alphabetized them, and written brief descriptions for each.

These patterns were all posted to the aforementioned sites in October, 2007, though some may have made their initial appearance on the web somewhat earlier. A few may have been posted in late September or the first few days of November: they were interesting enough to include here!

If you prove to like this feature, I'll continue to do it for you every month. You'll find patterns of all kinds after the break: sweaters for men, women, and babies, handbags, scarves and shawls, hats, toys, animals, socks, mittens, you name it.

It's been over a week since Halloween. For days, you've been nagging your roommate to take down that ghost decoration they put up in the corner of the living room, near the ceiling. The trouble is, said roommate (who is usually pretty good about washing the dishes and not using all the toilet paper without buying more) claims not to have put up a ghost decoration anywhere in the house.

Meanwhile, the ghost stares at you balefully, waves its arms around, attempts to make spooky noises, leaves ectoplasm stains on the walls, and is starting to gather dust. You think you may have a bit of a problem on your hands: you're not afraid, you're annoyed. So, who you gonna call? There aren't many actual exorcists in the phone book, let alone Dr. Peter Venkman. (Does he even count as an "actual exorcist"? I mean, have you seen the man work?)

My prescription: get a copy of Ghostbusters and run it incessantly on your DVD player this weekend. At the same time, visit the Ghostbusters Prop Archive, a site dedicated to building all sorts of replica props from the film. Make a point of lingering on the pages for Proton Packs and Ghost Traps: print out a few plans, make some notes, and, most importantly, let your uninvited house-guest see you doing it. Periodically make calculating glances in his direction. Munch on marshmallows.

If your ghost is a reasonably bright ghost, he'll put two and two together and head for someone else's apartment. He doesn't have to know that you're not figuring out how to build real ghost traps, right?

If you just want to make some costumes and props for Ghostbusters cosplay or fan films, the GPA would probably work for that, too, I guess... because I'm joking about the exorcism idea. The site has all the detailed information, screen grabs, and building suggestions you could possibly need to make your project a success. There's even a small shop full of elements that may be difficult to find: knobs for the goggles, belts for the uniforms, etc. Get busting!

Are you throwing a party this Halloween? Have a theme lined up? If not, consider transforming your home into the Great Hall at Hogwarts, the fictional school for witches and wizards from the beloved Harry Potter series. Here are ideas from the entertaining experts at About.com: Make a big sign to hang by your front door reading "Platform Nine and Three-Quarters." Gold paint or marker on black card would look great. Next, use black felt to make a Sorting Hat, which can be the centerpiece of the buffet table. You or the kids can decorate it with stars, moons, and so on. Third, if you have stuffed owls or owl puppets (or if you can beg or borrow them), place them around the living room or string them from the ceiling with invisible fishing line. While you're at it, use more black card to cut out bat shapes and hang them from the ceiling too. Sounds fun, huh?

For more awesome suggestions, click here! Even more great ideas can be found at AmazingMoms and KidsPartyFun. Naturally, your party guests should be encouraged to dress in Harry Potter-themed costumes! The genius of the Harry Potter-theme party is that all the decorations are family-friendly (not too scary), as well as being easy and inexpensive to make. Plus everyone -- big and small -- loves Harry Potter, making this a perfect Halloween party theme for families.

Rayguns are pretty cool: they have an immensely interesting and arcane look, but they're science-fiction enough to not be able to hurt anyone in real life. They've got style and flash. No retro-futuristic heroine or hero should ever be without one.

Disney licensed an inexpensive plastic toy "Sound Phaser" in conjunction with their movie Meet the Robinsons; it looks a lot like a classic raygun. In need of a prop for a "steampunk vs. cyberpunk" Halloween party, Craftster user TheBon gave a steampunk makeover to one of the raygun toys: after adding a paint treatment and gears, she has a neo-Victorian masterpiece to rival these $690 models from Weta.

If you would like to make one of your own, you'll need the gun itself, along with several kinds of spray paint (including a primer meant for use on plastics), painter's tape, detail paint, gears (clock parts will work), and a few other supplies. Can't get your hands on that particular gun? Here's a different execution of the same idea.

Halloween being Halloween and kids being kids, it seems inevitable that there will be plenty of people going as Harry Potter and friends this year. It's difficult to walk into a costume shop these days without tripping over witch hats and sorcerous accessories (and pirate gear, but that's another story).

In spite of this mass availability, there are plenty of things you can make for yourself. One of the coolest costume accessory tutorials out there is this one for a Harry Potter wizard's wand, which looks great and is made with paper, two kinds of glue (Elmer's/PVA/school glue and hot glue), paint, and gilding. It can be done in well under an hour, plus a bit of drying time. If you're feeling especially ambitious, you can also try this "magical" ultraviolet LED Lumos wand variation, which can be used to reveal secret messages written with UV-reactive materials. And if you're not a Potter fan, this project might be useful in conjunction with my article about making your own fairy wings.

Have you ever wished for wings?

Costume shops are full of fairy wings at this time of year, but they tend to carry the same models over and over. If you want something more unique, there are at least half-a-dozen websites where you can order custom wings to your specifications, ranging from cartoon-cute to something as lifelike and colorful as a butterfly.

However, most styles of fairy wings are not very difficult to make, if you have the time and determination. Find out more after the break: we have links to plenty of tutorials, videos, and visual inspirations!

There are so many opportunities to get great photos around Halloween. We have the changing leaves, the bright orange pumpkins, the carved jack-o-lanterns with flickering lights, the costumes and make-up. You just don't find this richness in the other seasons. For me, Halloween shots are among my greatest photographic failures. I cannot, however, seem to properly photograph a jack-o-lantern, or catch the mood of a haunted evening. The Ghoulish Guide to Scary Snaps is exactly what I was looking for.

The collection of Halloween photo tips covers everything from appropriate lighting to photographing your jack-o-lantern and frightening costumes. They suggest that the best Halloween pictures are taken at dusk. There is enough natural light to go without flash, but still show off the candle lit pumpkin and bright costumes. They also have some great recommendations for designing your jack-o-lantern so that it can be easily photographed.

Once you've mastered your Halloween shots, get ready to enjoy the rest of the season with their 12 Fantastic Fall Photo Tips. Next time you're out raking leaves with the children, make sure you bring the camera along. Armed with a beautiful setting and your new knowledge of fall photography, you're sure to have some beautiful photos.

M.A.C. Cosmetics is known for their glamorous makeup: available in a bewildering array of shades and renowned for quality, many items in the line don't cost much more than their higher-end drug-store counterparts. The line was created for film and photo studio use, but is quite popular with beauty devotees as well.

Now M.A.C. has created a group of Halloween costume makeup ideas, and put it on their site. There's a series of categories: Dark Side has spooky-glam monster makeup, the looks under Graphically are all patterns, the Optical Illusion category is self-explanatory (and would take a lot of skill to replicate), Pretty Things is full of more illusion makeup (feminine "masks" and animals), and Robotniks is all about our shiny metal friends.

The person who suggested this post to CRAFT said that they believed the looks could be replicated with any Halloween makeup. I think that depends on the skill of the artist. You're definitely going to have an easier time getting good results with higher-end products than you will with a $4 greasepaint palette, but these ideas are a good starting point.

However, you might not find it worthwhile to buy all the suggested shades if you only want them for one night; some of these looks require ten different products. Keep in mind that M.A.C. cosmetics have fine textures and are highly pigmented, if you're trying to find substitutes. (L'Oreal's H.I.P. line would probably be a good starting point, along with some theatrical products from Ben Nye that are available at many costume and theatrical supply shops.) Though it's not DIY, you could also always contact your local M.A.C. counter about having one of their artists try to replicate the look you like.

[via CRAFT.]

The other day, I posted about the Greater Bay Area Costumers Guild's Great Pattern Review. While I was writing, something came to mind: many of the patterns they list are out of print.

Patterns go out of print often. There's a high turnover, particularly among the large mainstream commercial companies like Simplicity and McCall's. Because those companies are trend-driven, they try to produce and carry patterns that somehow tie in with recent popular costume movies (this year, it's all about pirates, but I bet you'll be hard-pressed to find a good pirate pattern in your local craft store three years from now). Sometimes, they discontinue patterns that don't sell well, but it seems like they occasionally replace other patterns, the "classics" like poodle skirts and witch costumes, with newer, better models of the same thing. This is also true of their non-costume patterns.

When you try to locate an out-of-print pattern, there are a few things to remember, things that are relevant to people interested in sewing with patterns of any kind. Everything you need to know to find the right older pattern for you is waiting after the break!