How To Make a Halloween Costume Without Leaving The House

If you know me or have been reading my blog for awhile, you know that I have dreams of becoming a flight attendant someday. While those plans simmer on the back burner, I can at least pretend to have my dream job because it's Halloween. And everybody knows you can be whatever the f*#% you want to be on Halloween.

But the problem is I'm lazy and I'm indecisive (two qualities that would probably make me a poor flight attendant). I've been hatching costume plans for a month, but haven't loved any of them enough to actually get my act together. I waited until the last minute, and now I'm scrambling to figure out what to be for a neighborhood Halloween party.

Luckily, I possess two qualities that WOULD make me a fantastic flight attendant – I am quick on my feet and I am resourceful. I decide to create a costume out of nothing the day of the party and challenge myself to not spend a dime or leave the house. 

By scrounging around my closet, I pull together a somewhat-convincing retro flight attendant costume. I grab a navy blue pencil skirt and white button down shirt. My small collection of silk scarves includes a red, white and blue number that will help pull the whole look together. I even find my childhood button collection (I collected just about everything when I was a kid, and yes, I saved it all) which contains three sets of airline wing pins. Score!

But I'm missing one key component of any realistically retro flight attendant getup. A pillbox hat. After some Google searching, I learn that a pillbox hat is fairly simple to make. In one tutorial you can even start with a cereal box, but I'm not feeling quite that ambitious. Also, I don't want to sew. I look around the house until I find a hat-shaped sugar container that's almost empty. Thanks, Domino®! I transfer the remaining crystals to a bag and proceed to cut the plastic container in half using a combination of X-ACTO® knife and scissors. Be careful if you do this! I also used a hair dryer to soften the plastic a bit and get those weird "handle" curves out of the structure.

I find one of my husband's old shirts in our Goodwill donation pile and take scissors to that, cutting a strip that will wrap around the outside of the sugar container form.

I locate an old mini glue gun and a huge bag of glue sticks I bought years ago ("These are so cheap! I'm sure I'll use them for something someday!"). Well, that day has come. I fire up the glue gun and secure the shirt fabric to the sugar container form. I glue the bottom edges under the form, and the top edges down to the top. 

Once that's done, I grab a cereal box and cut a round top from the thin cardboard. I glue more shirt fabric to the top of the cereal box circle, tack the edges underneath with more glue and affix that to the top of the hat. It's all coming together now. But it's so plain. Clearly something is missing. 

I raid more drawers and come up with a navy handkerchief that I don't mind sacrificing. Cutting a strip of navy fabric and gluing a nice dark edge around the bottom of the pillbox helps finish the look and makes the hat match my skirt better. Done!

My husband was even happy to play along as my disheveled, weirdo traveler — a creepy passenger on my flight. He wore a wig and his own clothes, and tucked a passport in his pocket to complete the theme.