DTC


A Halloween Costume Party and Costume Ideas for
you and your pet or
just for humans

[Cous Cous cookie]



We went to the 1998 Halloween Party at Mounds Pet Foods in Fitchburg.

Maubee (cat), Heather (human) and Cous Cous (rat) dressed up for the costume contest. We took 2nd place in the pet/owner competition, dressed as a cook (Heather), a birthday cake (Maubee) and a gingerbread man (CousCous) with a gingerbread house. More pictures of the gingerbread house are below.






First place pet/owner went to a 'dark knight' and his 2 dogs in armor. Third went to a man in an M&M bag costume and his dog, but we didn't see the dog's costume.
There was a tricks for treats contest which we missed because we were busy taking compliments from all the other party-goers and taking pictures of the other costumes.




[click on Maubee's picture for a better look at the cake top]





[3rd place winner]
The big contest was for animal costume and the judges, local radio morning show duo Mark and Vicky, showed obvious bias towards dogs. (They are both dog owners) Of course there were more dogs there than anything else. First place (a years worth of IAMS food) was a small dog dressed as a baby in a doll stroller (cute, but not very original), 2nd was a dog with green hospital scrubs on (2nd!? Well maybe if the owner had dressed as a patient! Now that would be a funny costume!), 3rd was the one of these three I liked the best, a Great Dane as a bumblebee. [the other 2 cats]









Other attendies were 2 other cats, a red devil and a poor male dressed as a medieval princess. There was a guinea pig dressed as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz (very cute, but I don't think she kept her costume on long enough to be a part of the contest).





[a rat witch]





The one other rat attended dressed as a witch. The rest were all dogs, some of the better costumes were a milk bone, the already mentioned armor dogs and Great Dane bumblebee. A Cruella DeVille with two dalmations dressed up as a witch and something else was there. A chihuahua wore a biker's leather jacket and a dog and owner were in pajamas.




There were many other dogs, probably 20-25 animals all told. Everyone got a treat bag and an instant picture to keep.







Costume Ideas, especially for rats and cats



These ideas were mostly a result of thinking about how to capitalize on my rats liking to hide in things and peer out. I welcome all costume ideas. Email me at hmonson@mailbag.com.
(Thanks to Tabitha for several great costume ideas)

  1. Bakery theme: Human as Chef (white hat and apron, flour on face), cat as birthday cake with LED 'candles' and rat gingerbread cookie with a gingerbread house in the aquarium. (The other great part is that we can put out the gingerbread house as a holiday decoration) My other variations on this idea were to get a cookie jar and have that in the rat(s) aquarium rather than a gingerbread house and to have my white rat dress up as an oreo. But CousCous is much more friendly and not white so we did gingerbread. [click on the picture to see the other side of the house]

  2. Pumpkin: Carve a pumpkin with fairly large features and have the rats hang out in it. With 2 or more rats one could be a light up (battery operated) candle, the others can be bats and/or moths. (I loved this idea but couldn't think of a human or cat costume that I liked to go with it.)
  3. Gardener: Get a clay flower pot and put some fake flowers in it with some type of 'dirt', maybe brown felt. Leave an open area in the middle of the pot. Dress up hiding rats as flowers, having the petals going around their necks. Dress up less apt to hide rats as a butterfly or bee. Keep all the rats in an aquarium with the flower pot and maybe some garden tools. The human could dress up as a gardener, gloves, jeans and checkered shirt?, with dirt smudges and garden tools. The cat could dress up as a bumblebee or a package of seeds or ?? something else.
  4. Titanic: This is just a beginning of an idea, first find a fisherprice or like boat for cheap at Goodwill or a rummage sale. Somehow dress the rats up as Jack and Rose (that is the weak part of this idea...I've only seen the film once, so I don't know how hard it would be to pull off). Put rats and boat in the aquarium. A cat could be an iceberg (using Styrofoam packing pieces) or a life boat?? Human, well I didn't think that far, I got stuck on how to dress rats like Rose and Jack....
  5. Medical: Dress your dog or cat in hospital scrub shirt, and maybe add a stethoscope. (and pager?) Human dresses as a patient in hospital gown. Optional gorey mask or gorey wounds on human? Other additional costumes that could go with this theme are a Nurse or Ambulance driver (are there toy size rat ambulances?).
  6. Easy but great idea: If your pet wears a collar, cut out and draw a cardboard sized-up replica of a Ty brand Beanie Baby tag and attach it to the collar, and voila, instant costume!
  7. Frankenstein: Add bolts to cats collar, beyond that I haven't been able to figure out!
  8. Igloo: Make an igloo for the rats, and dress rats up as eskimos, penguins, sled dogs or something.
  9. Judge: a black t-shirt and white hair made out of toilet paper rolls glued to a piece of cloth and draped over a large dogs head. Human could dress as a lawyer or convict.
  10. dice: a cardboard box painted white with balck spots
  11. a farm animal: dog or cat in overalls with a homemade baseball cap (this won Tabitha first prize at a halloween contest with her white shepherd Conan)
  12. little red riding hood: red sweater and cape







Costume Ideas, for people only.

This year I'm not planning on subjecting my animals to a costume, so I've come up with several ideas for costumes. Some of these are relatively complex to make, some simpler. I welcome more costume ideas. Email me at hmonson@mailbag.com.
  1. One of several insect ideas, this is the one I am most fond of... a mosquito. (it should be pretty scary, but funny too in human size) I found some sort of kitchen gadget for eyes and for the stinger I am using foam pipe insulation. For legs I used foam round insulation like you find in the weatherization section of the hardware store. The wings will be 9 gauge aluminum wire forms covered with queen size pantyhose. I may use this wire, or other wire, inside some of the foam to help it keep its shape as legs, etc. (I won first prize with this at a party)
    I would have liked to find a small buzzing thing to make the mosquito noise.
    You could also emphasize the blood sucking effect, maybe with a belly full of blood effect...red balloon?....or with fake blood dripping from the 'stinger'.
  2. My next favorite insect idea is a killer bee. I'd probably buy or rent the bee outfit and add an ammo belt and a holster and fake gun or hatchet or just use your imagination to make it 'killer'. Maybe a bee with a slasher movie mask would be good.
  3. Here's a real easy but unusual one, for people who don't really want to wear a costume. A tetherball, dangling from a hat or around your neck. You could fake a tetherball by gluing rope to any old ball.
  4. A germ of an idea that I've had is to get a stuffed animal or other object and wear it on your head. Then wear a costume that would go under that object. My main idea here has been around getting a stuffed chicken or duck or dinosaur and making myself an egg, or an egg in a nest. My main problem is trying to figure out how to make myself into an egg...and once I do, will I be able to move/sit/etc?! Other ideas might be to be a tree with a squirrel or bird, be a mountain with a house on top, or ??.
  5. Trash. Legs and armholes in a large trash bag (contractor or business size?) that could be cinched around the neck. Add trash coming out of rips or the top.
    Possible arallel germ of an idea of somehow being 'trailer trash' or 'white trash'??
  6. Another bug, but not an insect: spider. Dress in black (or add hourglass for black widow?) and stuff four extra leg/arms. String them up so they move when the arms/legs move. Wear a dark hat and mock up spider eyes on it (how?).
    companions to a spider:
  7. Now that I have a shirt painted like a globe (from my internet WWW costume above) I have some ideas incorperating that...
  8. Magnetic poetry - dress in dark clothing and have 'tiles' with words on them. This would be cooler if people could move them around. Is there a way to do this with velcro?
  9. A nun with a schoolgirl/schoolboy in uniform - nun should have a ruler of course.






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