Black Cats and Bats and Spiders: Vintage-Inspired Halloween Style

Halloween is almost upon us, and it is time for some elegantly seasonal vintage style, with the photos from my collaboration project. I'm so excited!

My co-designer in this Halloween collaboration was Casey, who blogs at Noir Girl and you may also know from her delightful vintage outfits on instagram.

When Casey and I teamed up, we decided our goal was to make some elegant and stylish vintage-inspired outfits with subtle Halloween themes. After getting some basics in place, we went away to independently sketch outfit ideas drawing inspiration from the 1920s to the 1950s. I already shared on instagam and the email newsletter some of the designs that didn't make it, but we ended up deciding on one each from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s to make.

This first is 1950s inspired and a spider web theme. Ever since I saw the photos of Nora in the hat I made for her, where the decoration showed up in silhouette through the hat brim, I had been wanting to make another hat that made use of that idea. My aim with this hat was for the spider web detail and the spiders to be barely visible from above, then appear when the light shone behind.

By making the shapes from white felt, and covering the top with organza, they stay nicely hidden at first.

With the sun behind, they appear! I won't lie, I'm feeling pretty smug about how that turned out!

Casey's fitted black wiggle dress has just the most divine details on the bodice, and a sheer over-skirt representing the spider web.

Next up, a 1930s-inspired cat outfit. We went with a black-white-and-grey rather than a more traditional black cat, but it gave us more shades to play with in the outfit, and I'm happy that we did.

This has got to be the chic-est cat costume I've ever seen! If I do say so myself, since I sketched the original idea, but really it was Casey's amazing work that brought it to this fantastic conclusion. That little jacket is to die for!

The hat is inspired by a few different little round tilt hats that I've seen photos of, and I've been aching to make one for a while. Velvet cat ears on top add a little twist to the look, and a plaited fabric bandeau holds it in place comfortably.

I have saved my favourite until last. This design of Casey's caught my imagination from the very beginning, and although the outfit evolved through the design and making process, it remains my favourite. By a mile. And I really do like the other ones.

Our 1940s number takes a bat as it's theme, in a quite abstract way that is elegant but distinctly spooky. Maybe even villainous.

The forties halo hat is the basic style beginning for this hat, with the halo frame around the face developed with sculpted felt shapes reminiscent of the folds of the bat's wings.

Casey's super-elegant black suit pairs so perfectly with the hat, with it's stylish back buttons, perfect kick to the skirt, and subtle bat-wing sleeve detail.

Let's also take a moment to enjoy the photography and stunning autumnal backdrop, and how beautiful Casey looks modelling her own and my creations.

Thank you Casey for your amazing sewing, the fun and inspiration collaborative design process, and helping me make my Halloween hat dreams come true in a way I couldn't have achieved on my own.

Don't forget to hop on over to Casey's blog to see more photos and hear her side of the story.

I'd love to hear what you think! Would you wear a subtle vintage look as a Halloween costume alternative or even just out and about in October?

P.S. For the record, Teacup makes an adorable Evil Bat Queen, but I didn't get any photos of that, sadly.

"Candy Corn" - a Halloween Whimsy Design for October

For my October whimsy, I've naturally turned to Halloween for inspiration.
 
Since I already made some whimsies last Halloween, with shadowy birds, dripping blood and skeleton hands, I felt drawn to something a bit lighter.

Thanks to a brainstorming session with my friend Sarah, we have a candy corn whimsy!

Complete with candy-corn-coloured flower and velvet leaves, handmade candy corn pieces and a light peach-coloured veil.

I took the photoshoot as an opportunity to bring out some of my favourite old Halloween decorations.

These particular items have been around since I was a kid. I remember the year we got Jack, with his squishy funny face. I think there was a whole collection, although we only had one. Does anyone else remember these or did anyone have one?

He's a bit worse for wear now, particularly from some conflicts with cat claws.

But still loveable. I'm not sure how he makes that face though. I gave this some serious effort and quite a few attempts.

He likes feeling pretty, although he doesn't want to admit it.

Anyway...another thing I've been meaning to do is show an alternative way to wear a whimsy. My understanding is that the true-to-vintage way is with the flower (or other main decoration) at the top and centre of the head, with the veil coming down to just below the eyes or nose.

If you prefer though, I think this looks great with the flower to the side, an the veil arranged over the head from there. Depending on the exact position, you can have the veil fall where you like, even just over your hair if you aren't sure about face veils.

I love that one. It makes me look like I have a crazy nose (while conveniently hiding my actual nose!).

This whimsy is up in my Etsy shop (as are two of last years designs), and ready to ship!

Halloween lovers, how do you like your decorations and outfits? Fun, whimsical and bright, or dark and ominous? (Or a bit of both!)

Halloween Photoshoot

Not much to say about these images today. Except that I love them so much! Mel and Dee did an amazing job taking these photos of my Halloween whimsies, with elegant but spooky style.

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I hope everyone had a wonderful and fun Halloween!

4 Simple Halloween Whimsies

I did dream of showing you some awesome spooky photos of these pieces in action, but it hasn't turned out as planned. I was fooled by this photoshoot into thinking I could take night-time images, but using my camera (good but obviously not good enough), a tripod and the self-timer (sadly I have no remote), and having to waddle slowly back-and-forth between the camera and my chair, led to a serious lack of success.

So for now, just some straightforward daylight shots, and then I am charging others with the task of getting some better photos for me!

1. "Hands" Veil and Hairclips

I wanted to make fairly simple, quick,easy projects, and this definitely fits into that category. I also wanted to work with materials I had available to me in my craft supplies or my existing Halloween decorations. I can't remember why I bought them originally (possibly there was no particular reason), but I had a lot of these skeletal hands.

I paired them with a thin strip of veil, just for the eyes and perhaps the nose, as in this 1950s-style evening hat.

I did put a longer strip of veil than I intended, meaning that the hands can reach further around the head. I was aiming for them to just sit above the ears on both sides. The effect, however, is not bad!

I'm not going to go into tutorial detail here, but you could easily make this yourself, and use any kind of Halloween prop on the ends. They are just glued to alligator clips (with a layer of felt in between, which does help them stick better and give you something to sew the veil to) and the veil cut to size, gathered at the ends, and sewn to the felt.

2. "Tears" Hairband/Whimsy

The other concept I knew I wanted to explore for Halloween was felt shapes on veils. One manifestation of that idea became this headband veil with tears of blood.

Getting the positioning of the tears correct is the hard part, and the scale would be very different on different people (and is very different on my mannequin too!). I would cut the tears smaller if I made it again.

The shape and other trims on the headband are inspired by a 1950s one from AWW, although I only added a bow to one side rather than both.

As you can see, the tears are also very much about the angle too!

3. "Blood" Hair Flower with veil.

Another felt cut out idea was, of course, drips of blood from the corner of the mouth. How could I resist? I paired this with a deep red hair flower to keep to an elegant vampiric style.

As with the skeleton hands, the veil is gathered at each end and attached to the clips, with the flower attached on top of the clip at one side.

I'll show you the two half-decent images I took last night, but you can see how fuzzy they are! They do show that the blood drips look better on a real person than the mannequin (in my opinion).

I did not edit this green in! It was legitimately provided by frog-shaped green fairy lights! (Very spooky.)

I did, however, use PicMonkey's lovely Halloween themes to play with the background in this one.

4. "The Birds" Whimsy

I've been wanting to execute this idea for a long time now! I watched "The Birds" at my local cinema this year, and thoughts have been simmering in my brain ever since.

The fabric "flower" on top is one I removed from a little knit bolero cardigan, and I think it looks much better as part of a whimsy than it did in its original place.

As with all of these, there is plenty of room for adjustment that shifts the position of the felt shapes to find the most flattering look.

As these were quick projects, I've just glued the felt shapes to the veil, so forgive me for that laziness and ignore the visible glue in the next photo!

I was bursting with Halloween ideas. I wanted to make them all! It was hard to restrict myself to just a few that I could achieve quickly while I finish off my last pre-maternity-leave pieces. So I have a lot of ideas left over for next year!

I look forward to being able to show you some better photos of these later, but for now I hope they provide some inspiration for the Halloween season! I'd love to hear if you try any of these for yourself, and hear all about your costumes, whatever they are, so I can live vicariously through others!! (I'll be at home on the couch, "costumed" as a large tired pregnant lady.)