I'm Just an Orange County Girl

I love Halloween, always have and always will. I can't ever remember a time where I didn't dress up and I think my costumes have always been handmade.

I don't recall every costume and don't have pictures of any when I was a kid, but I remember being tinkerbell and getting my white canvas shoes painted green, covered in glitter and adorned with little Pompoms. One year, my Dad dressed me up as a cat and I remember it was super simple... but still fantastic. I had an oversized leopard print velour sweater that I wore as a dress with black tights, black shoes and he did my makeup very well... Even with gold glitter. For a Dad, he killed it! My Mom even made me an amazingly elaborate costume in my (dare I even say it) tween years. It was a clown / jester getup that I loved. Mostly at that age, you buy a costume in a store and try to coordinate with your girlfriends... Not me. I liked to be different. Later as a sophomore in High School, my first job was at Mrs. Field's cookies and in the mall we always had a ton if trick or treaters. That year I made my first costume by hand, I was a giant cookie. It was felt and it was fabulous! I may bring that back one year.

As an adult, things haven't really changed. The costumes go on and on... some good, others not do great.

Our friends usually always have a Halloween party and whether it be one in San Diego or Orange County... I never miss a chance to dress up!

This year, I knew I wanted to do something different so when asked to brainstorm for a theme at work, I was excited that my idea was chosen. Nothing drives me more crazy than a scary theme... So we chose "A Star Is Born": Choose a movie from the year you were born a dress as a character within that movie. That gave us the ability to be scary or sweet, go all out or just be low key. Much to my delight... Grease was in my year and immediately I knew what I wanted to be.

And so my next task was to figure out a couples costume for our other party. Our friends are very creative and everyone really steps outside the box on what they choose to be but this year, I was stumped. I had no clue... Well I did but the husband didn't like my idea. We did finally find something that we agreed upon but creative?! Not so much. Store bought?! Not in a million!

The costume prep for him was easy but mine were harder. I started by first asking everyone to save all used toilet paper rolls for me... Weird I know, but I had a plan! Next, look for a dress pattern to use for both costumes. Turns out, modern day patterns are awful... So what does one do next?! Find a vintage one online, in your size and praise the fashion sense in 1967. Dreamy. Lots of man hours, seeing, creating, cussing, seeing machine fixing and late to the party arriving... They were done. I was happy. Mission accomplished. Most Original Costume Contest winner at work? Yep. Me!