Medusa Costume
Medusa Costume
Time: 1 to 2 hours
Effort: Easy - some sewing required
Materials:
- Bridal-wreath-style headpiece, or other type of headband, painted black or green
- Lots and lots of various sized rubber snakes - glow in the dark, green, black, etc. (Don't get too many that are heavy and too long)
- Heavy-duty thread and needle
- Long black dress from previous witch-style costume, or tattered Greek goddess costume
- Makeup to make skin green and snake-like, black eye liner, red lipstick
- Old doll - Barbie with ruined hair works great
- 1 can of spray paint - the kind that turns sprayed item into stone
- Snake accessories - belt, earrings, fangs, etc.
Instructions: Sew snakes to headband. Attach by securing the snakes' tails, heads, and bodies to headband using heavy thread. Pierce the snakes and sew securely to the headband. Make sure snakes are of various lengths and that some hang down and some stick up. The more, the better. Fit headband to head. Adjust if necessary. For the dress, either shred the hem and sleeves of an old long black dress or make a Greek goddess costume look very tattered. Wear Greek-style jewelry, if desired. Spray-paint old doll to look like stone - since Medusa turned everyone that looked at her into stone. (Either a Barbie or another doll with rigid arms and legs works well.) Paint face to resemble snake. Green skin, black around eyes, bright red mouth. Many makeup kits have instructions for this.
Tips: Reference mythology books for pictures of Medusa and the story behind her, to get more ideas on how to recreate her.
Variation I: You can put your child's hair in a ponytail on the top of her head, spray it heavily with hairspray, then used a curling iron to give the effect of snakes throughout her head and spray them green. Or, you can hot glues snakes to the headband and then spray paint the whole thing gold. After it dries, tease the hair with lots of hairspray so it sticks out all over. Your child can wear warm black clothes, like sweats, and wrap herself up in black material that's tied at the waist with a wide gold ribbon. You can glue googly eyes on the snakes for fun, and put gold tint on your child's arms and face.
