Lion and Lion Tamer Wheelchair Costumes

Every year i try to come up with an idea for a costume or character i can be that can involve transforming my wheelchair into something, anything.  In past years, i've done PeeWee Herman and Chairy, Roger Rabbit and Benny, Fred Flintstone and car, Captain Hook and ship, race car driver and racecar, etc.  Last year, for whatever reason i had it in my head that i wanted to get cat eye contact lenses and pretty much based my costume idea on that.  A lion! A caged lion. A caged circus lion. To my surprise i was able to gather a crew of circus freaks to join in. 

The lion and lion tamer costumes were hand sewn by my very talented mom, who put more work into this idea than anyone. Thank you, mama. 

How to make a circus lion cage!

I always come up with these crazy ideas for costumes that i can't actually physically do myself.  Luckily, my handy dandy dad came to the rescue to help out with the lion cage/wagon.  Cut out plain cardboard for the cage frame and spray paint it red. Two parts: top and bottom. Cut out cardboard accents spray paint gold.  The wheels were easy.  Take your wheel, trace the inside of it on cardboard, cut out and it should fit perfectly snug into the wheel.  Spray gold.  Usually anything spray painted on cardboard will need at least 2 coats.  The cage bars were made from pvc piping, which you can get at any hardware store.  We cut them to size, sprayed them gold.  My dad spaced the bars apart with little wooden dowels. Glued to each pipe, they created an even distance between each pvc pipe.  Dowels on both the top and the bottom of the pipes.  This way, the dowels don't show once the red frame was placed on.  The red bottom base is placed over my head to rest on my chair.  the gold bars are placed over my head to rest on the bottom base.  The top red frame is placed over the bars to rest gently on top.  Thank you papa bear, for construction and spray painting.

Not the greatest instructions without photos, but you get the idea if you ever want to give it a try!  I didn't reread those instructions above, so i'm just going to assume they made complete and perfect sense. 

Paint face. Put on costume. Put in contacts. Get in cage. Caged circus lion with lion tamer!

halloween treats

thanks to hurricane sandy, halloween has been rescheduled for today.  i figure it's a good day to share my halloween treats this year.

i found a pictures of these bloody cupcakes online and did my best to make them myself.  store-bought candy knives and strawberry syrup blood

brownie graveyard, also found online. i was lazy so instead of making gravestone-shaped cookies, i just used melting candy wafers for the graves. 

peanut butter (eye)balls!  covered and decorated with melted candy wafers

ghost cupcakes i found in a halloween magazine. ghosts made from fondant. i didn't have a rolling pin and didn't follow the directions to make these properly. i winged it, worked well enough!

jackolantern and mummy cake pops. these were a nightmare to make. i've found cakepops to be frustratingly time consuming.  these were supposed to be fast and simple but for some reason i couldn't seem to get the candy wafers to melt properly. at least they still look halloweeny!

trick or treat, smell my feet!

trick or treat!

happy halloween!!!!!  

1EG friday: art of darkness

two of my halloweeny 1EG pieces (along with my new trick or treater customs) will be in the "art of darkness" halloween art show at the monster's ball in trenton, nj tomorrow! they're old pieces, but the halloween spirit never dies. whatever that means.

trick or treat: twinkle

the final to my trick or treating trio:

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twinkle! the little lizard-thing witch. twinkle is hubert and philbert's little friend.  i customized a trexi figure to create this little gal. she's about 3" or so.  my favorite part is her cute little pair of bloomers. 

so that's it! my trick or treating trio is complete. 

they will be on display together at ARTWORKS in trenton, nj at the "art of darkness" halloween art show at the monster's ball !

you are boo-tiful!

happy halloween !!

a quick, adorable painting for this special time of year

trick or treat: philbert

second of three trick or treaters!

this is hubert's friend, philbert the sheep devil. he's the sweetest devil there is. philbert a customized mini munny, complete with all the essential devil accessories.

one more trick or treater friend next week!

trick or treat: hubert

the first of three trick or treaters !

this is hubert the mummy bull.  hubert is so excited for to go trick or treating with his 2 best friends, who i will introduce you to throughout the month until halloween.  hubert is a full sized (7") munny, the first full sized one i've customized in a long, long time.  i loved making and painting him. he's my baby bull. mummy bull.

wheelchair costumes!

YES! time to get into the halloween spirit!  apparently two of my wheelchair costumes are on two different sites.  

the chive

&

buzz feed

getting super excited for the most wonderful time of year!

see my other past costumes HERE!

happy october!

HAPPY OCTOBER!!! the greatest month of the year.  

a little preview of new halloweeny pieces to be posted soon

happy halloween !

a few days late, but i guess this has to be the last (of too few) halloween posts for this year.  i'm sad to see halloween go once again. i almost forgot about this drawing, but absolutely felt the need to post it.  last year, i made a drawing for each month of the year illustrating my family for each season. this was my brilliant october/halloween illustration. and it's awesome.

i've really been slacking off on some significant posts about disabilities. i really feel as though i have a lot to share and inform lately, but instead, here's my wheelchair costume this year. excuse the goof face. the flintstones car has been done plenty of times before, but i had planned to make it more exciting by adding fred's giant ribs to the side. unfortunately, not only did i not have the time to finish the car, i didn't even get to start the ribs.  but it was fun nonetheless, and seeing how ridiculous tim looked in my homemade dino costume made it worth it as well.

how to:

the car is made of cardboard, paint, and some ginormous tube from home depot. the roof of dowels with torn fabric glued to it. fred: oversized orange shirt with painted black triangles. torn apart blue fabric glued together for tie.  dino: matching pink/purple pants, shirt, and sweatshirt (for extra fabric only).  sweatshirt sleeve torn off and filled with stuffing and pinned to pants for tail. black spots painted on sides and back of shirt. for collar:  blue fabric with painted yellow tag.  for head: white foam sheets spray painted skintone and glued to visor in shape of 3D snout, with pink foam tongue hanging down.  styrofoam ovals with black paper for eyes surrounded with fabric from sweatshirt, draping down the back and sides to velcro under chin for hood-like piece. three black paper "hairs" glued to top of head.

 if anyone ever wants to give it a shot, feel free to email me with any questions, because that was the worst explanation ever.

so a bit of a disappointment this year, but i'll get back on track next year. make sure you check out my costumes of halloween past.  though nothing will ever beat my amazing peewee and chairy costume from a few years ago.  which i happily won runner up (and some goodies) for in the strange kids club halloween homemade costume contest this year. thanks to SKC, you rock.

(the runner ups)

i hope everyone enjoyed their halloweens. show off your homemade costumes!

happy halloween cupcakes!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!! here are my halloween cupcakes this year. you can tell i had no time by the looks of these cupcakes.. store bought candies, toothpick zombies, and messy pumpkins. but they are festive and i love halloween! everyone go celebrate with a horror movie and trick or treaters!

so i obviously should have added some gravestones and brains.. but i had no time.  next time. i have plenty of zombie toothpicks left over to do so.

my rushing resulted in messy pumpkins, but they are pumpkin cupcakes (made by sister dl!) so i had to try to make them look like pumpkins.  design is from "hello, cupcake" book with some alterations (lack of materials).  i like to think these looked better in person.

i would have loved to make my own candies for these, but no time. again. these i just wanted to try out the color spray mist. definitely a fun addition to cupcakes that i'll have to experiment with in the future.

halloweeny

october has brought me a lot of unexpected and wonderful things to keep me overly occupied.  i didn't get to do much halloweeny stuff this year, like haunted houses and pumpkins, as i usually do. i had to make up for it by spending a few days at work making halloweeny bulletin boards! i work at 2 schools, so that means 2 bulletin boards.  hey, at least i get to incorporate some artsy fun sometimes into my non-art related job. 

happy halloween!

happy halloween!

 i started this sketch a few days ago on a train home from new york, until interrupted by a man who started a long conversation with my mom and me for the rest of the ride home. he was curious about me and my story because in 2009, his son was in a car accident due to black ice that resulted in him also in a wheelchair.  he was a really nice and positive man, who just kept telling me to never give up. he also kept saying how difficult it is for the parents (even more difficult, so he says) since they just want to see their kids get better so badly. i get it, but it's still really strange to hear from the parents point of view sometimes. the man's son has already recovered a great amount in only a year, so good for him, and best of luck to them.

time to make halloweeny treats and finish my horror-movie-watching. after spending the month watching friday the 13th (part 1-8), and nightmare on elm street (1-7), i'm finishing with freddy vs. jason. followed by SAW 3D later tonight with tim, the 7th and last saw movie to (sadly) end our tradition of seeing the new saw every year on halloween together since 2005. i know no one cares about my movie watching, but i get excited...