This year my six-year-old daughter wanted to be a ghost for Halloween---"but definitely not just a sheet ghost." We've been reading a lot of Victorian ghost stories and I think this led to her vision of "an old-fashioned ghost." Unlike past years' efforts, this turned out to be an incredibly simple costume and she was able to do a lot of the decision making herself. We started browsing the pre-1930 (Victorian 20s) category on eBay together for dresses that looked spooky (and would fit her), settling on a large Christening gown with an elaborate lace collar. We bought it now for $19.99:
We picked up some elbow-length white gloves, a few pieces of tulle, and some white face paint. After putting on the gown, we draped the tulle over her head and we were pretty much done. We did sew some of the tulle to her gloves so she would appear more ghostly when lifting her arms, but that's really all the work that we needed to do. She was skeptical that she still looked too much like a "sheet ghost," so we did a test run the other day and I took some pictures to prove to her how spooky she looks in this costume (in the image at the top, I may have even done a bit of clone-stamping to make her look see-through).
I also found her a spooky Victorian candle lantern that I rigged up with an LED-flame, but we forgot it for this test run at Elmwood Cemetery and Belle Isle. The lantern will be great for trick-or-treating tonight.
Nothing all that complicated, just a spooky old-fashioned ghost. But we sure had a lot of fun making these photos!
