NerDIY: Poison Ivy Costume

Can I tell you a secret? Actually, it’s really not much of a secret. I love Halloween. I always have. More than Easter or Thanksgiving, birthdays or Christmas, I LOVE Halloween. There’s something so childlike that has been maintained in Halloween for me, something that has died out for almost every other special day. No more Santa, no more easter bunny, yet the magic of Halloween remains for me. Which, of course, simply gives me a reason to get entirely overexcited about Halloween. oops.

I don’t really have any staged photos of myself, but I have a few of Halloween shenanigans in the library, with a friend who went as Jigsaw and another who went as Catwoman, so I thought I should add those in so you can get the general idea of what I looked like. They’re not great photos, meant more for keepsake, but it gives you the general idea

Jigsaw washing the windows

“Wait, are we supposed to smile or be evil?”

We’ll seduce you with our awkwardness

You seem to have us confused with a couple of warm-blooded damsels in distress

-featuring bad lighting and my eye circles-

Particularly, I get excited about the creation of my costume. That’s right;  I was the kid who had their sketchbook out in May, designing their Halloween costume. For as long as I can remember, I, or my mum, have made my costume. While all the other little kids had princess dresses embossed with Disney’s logo, I was standing there in an all out Hermione costume my mum made, from head to toe dedicated for my character for the single day I was allowed to be my childhood idol. And as the years have progressed, my costume has continued to be hand made; sewing strips of red yellow and orange to a dress to be The Girl on Fire, making a black and white polka dot skirt to be the 50’s for a group ‘fashion through the ages’ costume, and so on, I have maintained that handmade is better than bought.

This year, after the release of Suicide Squad back in August, my best friend and I pledged to go as Harley and Ivy. I was so excited, as I have wanted to make a poison Ivy costume for a long, long time. Sadly, last minute she ditched me, as the AP bio class (excluding me) decided to go as the characters of Grey’s Anatomy, with my teacher as Bailey, but I had already ordered the various pieces of my costume.

SO. Let’s get down to business

For this costume, you’ll need:

• a corset, preferably black, though mine wasn’t
• a metric fuckton of fake ivy
• a glue gun
• a pair of briefs or a skirt, depending on the amount of leg you intend to show, either green or black-I did both
• tights, green, or you can dye white ones with fabric dye
• gloves (green)

1. Okay, so you have to start out with trying everything on, making sure it all fits and that you can move comfortably in it
2. Strip almost all the fake ivy leaves from the stem, this shouldn’t be too difficult as typically they’re just glued on and come off easily. You could also cut them off at the base. No matter what, you want to end up with a bag of individual ivy leaves, and maybe a few still attached to the vine
3. Lay the corset out on the ground and begin gluing down the ivy, one leaf at a time, beginning at the bust and overlapping downward. You can roll up an old t-shirt and stuff it in the top to keep the structure and 3D-ness
4. If you want to cover the back laces or the hook-eye closure typically on the front, you can put it on and cover as need be. A friend can be of great use in this situation.
5. Congratulations! Your top is done. Now you can start the bottom. Stretch the bottoms out on a decently large piece of cardboard, or a shoe box as I did, and beginning at the top,  start gluing ivy leaves down. You can move the cardboard piece, and try to get the fullest coverage as possible, as they will stretch when you put them on
6. Try on your bottoms. Mark all the areas that you want to glue more leaves using chalk, take them off, and glue leaves in the remaining spaces.
7. Put on the tights. you can do the next part two ways
   1. mark with a sharpie everywhere you want a leaf, take off your tights, and glue the leaves on that way
   2. (I did this because I was getting frustrated with the other way)Take a piece of plastic thick enough that the hot glue won’t melt it or the heat won’t seep through. I used the old top to a makeup container – it was about 2″ and round. slide this between your skin and the tights. Glue on the leaf, peel off after it cools, move the plastic and repeat. It takes more time, but your design is more accurate to what you want
8. Finally, glue some of the small leaves to the flat side of a bobby pin
9. If you want, you can glue leaves to the shoes as well, but I chose to wear nude flats and go for the barefoot look

I did my makeup, curled my hair, threw on my costume and was very happy with the overall effect