Halloween 2012: Homemade Corpse Bride

So, this year, I was already Hot Garbage at a Halloween party last week, when I made my commitment to being nothing but gross costumes for the next 5 Halloweens. Last night, my Girl Scout troop hosted a trunk or treat event for local scout troops and their families. I just can't bring myself to wear the same costume twice in one year, so I trashed the trash costume and started working on a wedding dress that I wore for Halloween last year.

Here is my dress last year, I was a zombie bride to my husband's business man zombie. Mr. T is always a zombie.

How one procures a wedding dress: One day I was innocently pushing the cart around our local Goodwill. Suddenly, I was in front of the dressing room mirror wearing a *gorgeous* wedding gown that fit me like a dream. Funny how that happens. Sweetheart neckline, laced up the back... just lovely. Problem is, I'm already hitched. How am I going to talk Mr. T into laying down $40 for a wedding dress? Oh, but wouldn't he love a disgusting zombie bride? Eureka! I'd found a way to wear this beautiful dress at least once a year for the rest of my days.

Last year, we threw some ashes all over the skirt of the dress and I put my best zombie face forward. It was a cool look, but seemed like a costume cop-out. 'Here I am in a wedding dress with some gore on my face. Zombie bride, get it?' So, this year, I wanted to really gross up the dress to make it a stand-alone piece.

I decided on a big hole in the front, ala Corpse Bride, but grossly realistic. I started by chalking out an outline on the bust. Then I stitched along that outline before I did any cutting. This is because the bust of the dress has folded layers of fabric, and I didn't want to loose these folds once the dress was cut. Yes, it took some courage to put the first cut into my awesome dress. But a bride only wears her dress once... I wanna pimp this thing out and wear it every year!

I snipped away the first two layers of fabric on the dress. This dress has flexible boning that I wanted to leave in place. In one spot at the bottom, I cut through every layer so that I could apply makeup to my skin for even more realism. I modified the latex gore piece that I used in my realistic gore tutorial, cutting off the big fake bone. For the ribs, I cut out pieces of a shampoo bottle and stitched them right onto the dress. One above the latex gore, and one underneath.

I added some makeup to the dress and to the latex piece... here are the morbid results!

What do you think? I didn't spatter blood and opted for a more Corpse Bride look on my face instead of all-out gore because I was wearing it to a Girl scout event, after all. Scarier photos will most likely emerge next year.

Okay, now I want to see *your* Halloween costume! Upload a Photo of your Costume