Chicken Butt

Sushi costume FAQ

I've gotten quite a few questions about the California roll costume I created for Bugboy last year. I guess he was ahead of the curve with that one. I googled "sushi costume" last year and came up pretty empty. So I've created a new category called "Sushi Costume" and added all the sushi related posts I could find to that category. So click the link in Categories list on the lower right of this page or click here to see them all collected in one place.

I didn't include a recent post in the category because the only references to the costume are in the comments section. Instead I'm reposting the answer I gave here:

How did you make the foam rice?
"I made the foam rice out of the same upholstery foam I used for the rest of the costume. I cut it out, like whittling with scissors. Unfortunately the foam oxidizes quickly, so I had to spray paint them all white. I can't think of any better materials though, because it was easy to cut and very light weight. I used an all-purpose craft glue (the stuff in the gold bottle), I considered using a special foam glue, but I was attaching the pieces to fabric, so I didn't think there would be much benefit. Most of the pieces stayed on fine. Some fell off, I don't know if there is a better glue for the purpose.

This was an insanely time-intensive effort. I over-engineer everything and my perfectionist tendencies combined with my art background send these projects over the top. My nephew found the costume heavier than he would have liked and cumbersome for trick-or-treating."

I don't have a big list of questions. People either want to know how I made the whole thing or how I made the rice.

Some people found the costume via my Flickr set. Here is the link to all the posted photos:

http://flickr.com/photos/aunt_dodi/sets/1162478/

I hope this helps everyone who finds there way to Chicken Butt.

Tired, but satisfied

I'm proud of how well the costumes turned out.

I'm pooped. Trick-or-treating is getting easier each year. The kids are getting the hang of it. They still don't have the stamina we did. It drizzled most of the time, so that kind of put a damper on things. BugBoy couldn't handle wearing the sushi after an hour. Since we were just down the street we came back. Esmeralda dug out his skeleton costume I made him last year. Much easier to run in a painted sweatsuit than in a giant foam circle.

If you are one of my friends and family contacts you can see the pics in my Halloween set. Email me if you want me to include you. If I know you I'll send you an invite. If you aren't a contact you'll just see a couple pics of me.

Happy Halloween!

It's done! Yah! I am so tired. I stayed up until 2am this morning finishing my sister's costume. Hope it looks okay. I'll have to pixelize BugBoy's face on a picture so you can see it on him. (Unless you are already invited as friend or family to my Flickr account, then you can see all the pics.) It turned out pretty good if I do say so myself.

I'll take more pics tonight. I'm exhausted. Hopefully it won't be raining for trick-or-treating.

Fun party, sushi deadline looming

Had a blast at the party last night. Here is the photo set on Flickr. It took me forever (almost three hours) to get my makeup on and get ready. The eyelashes gave me more trouble than the latex nose and chin. I learned to important things about wearing fake body parts last night:

1. When wearing a false chin and nose, use a straw to drink. Otherwise, you'll probably mostly miss your mouth on the first sip and fill your chin with water.
2. Bring along the spirit gum for on-the-go repairs. My chin was behaving as it should.

The wig and the eyelashes were great once I got them on. I forgot I was wearing them. So glad I bought those bobby pins.

Well, back to the sushi. I'll take pictures later. One side is done and I'm cutting more rice. Apparently Max is worried I won't finish. I need to get the new rice glued on so it can dry while I start on my sister's costume.

Note: I always type the word costume wrong. I don't know why, but I always reverse the o and the u. This has made the last month or so rather tedious to report. It will be a relief to stop typing the word after tomorrow.

162 more fish eggs

Between the ping pong balls my sister and my brother-in-law bought, and the ones I couldn't resist picking up at Wal*mart after work, we have 162 more. (Yes, I do know that W is evil. It's hard to enjoy the low, low prices when I know how they bully their wholesalers. But sometimes they just have what I need and it's two blocks from my office.) That should do it quite nicely.

Tonight I've:

• Poked two holes in 162 balls
• Strung all the foam rice I cut up until now onto two parallel threads so it would be easier to spray full coverage white
• Painted all the new balls many, many times
• Cut the pieces for the inner cucumber, avocado, and crab meat
• Painted the inner filling pieces
• Inhaled unhealthy amounts of spray paint fumes (I had the garage door open and a fan going, but it was still foggy with fumes)
• Filled the common entryway of my building with said fumes and trailed tiny bits of foam from my condo door to my garage door

Tomorrow I will:

• Give another coat of paint to any balls still not fully covered
• Spray clear triple coat gloss onto balls
• Touch up foam paint as needed
• Glue foam pieces onto round front and back of sushi body
• Sew 162 balls onto body
• Sew orange fleece around neck and arm holes

And, if there is time I will cut my shawl fabric and sew on fringe before getting ready for the costume party. I will attempt to start doing my makeup at 5pm for the 7pm party. I don't know how long it will take me to attach the latex nose and chin, glue on my spider eyelashes, put on my temporary tattoo necklace with rhinestones, apply green makeup from my chest to my hairline, put on my wig, and get dressed.

Okay, I'm exhausted just looking at this list. Got to get to bed. I'll try to take pictures of everything for Flickr.

Balls! I need more balls!

Crap! I sewed on all 298 ping pong balls but I still need more. Damn.

My sister is now running around town buying up ping pong balls. I need to get more spray paint. How could my math be so wrong? The body ended up being deeper than I intended once the pieces were sewn together. I sewed the balls on a little closer together than I calculated on, they just looked so cool like that. They've started calling it the $500 dollar costume. They're joking. But it will definitely hit the $200 dollar mark once we get enough balls.

Tonight I will attempt to cut and paint the center ingredients for the California roll. Keep your fingers crossed that nothing too difficult crops up during that phase.

To see the whole photo set so far go to my Sushi Costume set on Flickr.

Slow sushi

I'm babysitting the nephews tonight. Normally I enjoy it, but I'm worried about getting the California roll costume done in time. I've all but given up on doing anything more for my costume. I've got to get BugBoy's done so I can get my sister's started. I've already RSVPed in the negative to my weekly poker game.

What you see above is about three hours of sewing on "eggs." I'm getting faster, but I'm still a bit scared I won't get it done.(Clicking any of the above pics will take you to my Flickr pics where you can see bigger pics.)

How much cleavage is too much?

My corset arrived yesterday. I had it shipped to work because that's where I get all my shipments. It was hard not to take it into the bathroom and try it on, but I managed to wait until I got home. It fits fine. It doesn't transform me into a lingerie model, but I didn't expect it to.

It's nice because you tie the strings in the back at the right length and then you hook it up the front. So once you get it to the right size you don't have to mess with it anymore. I squandered valuable sushi-sewing time last night trying to get it to just the right tightness.

Too little tension and I may as well wear a tank top with a stretched out old bra.

Too much and I'm Jessica Rabbit and can't see over my hiked-up chest.

I am racier in theory than in deed. I think I should make the top part just a bit snugger, but I'm not sure how comfortable I am with the resulting cleavage. Be careful what I ask for right. But with the top on over the corset it looks good. People may not even notice because I've seen much more dramatic cleavage than mine at regular parties. It is just something different for me, and I have the most titillating view, so to speak.

Note: Since this isn't one of "those" sites, I figured the illustrations were in better taste than pictures. Especially considering the small amount of nip showing in the too tight version (probably have to click to see popup enlargement you perv).

My fingers are horribly sore

The body of the California roll costume is done. I brought it over for BugBoy to try on today. It is a bit large and he can't put his arms down, but it looks great. It's durable too. He put it on upside down, he put it over the dog and his brother, and then he rolled around the living room floor in it. Of course, once it has the ping pong balls sewn on, he won't be able to do that.

So much hand sewing this weekend has made my finger tips sore. My right thumb and index finger tips even hurt to type this. I've sewn on seven balls so far, only 291 to go. Two balls were destroyed by Monkey. I think it's going to turn out pretty cool.

Sewing sushi

It's eleven p.m. and I'm still sewing. I'm going to finish the arm holes before I go to bed. My fingers are sore, not just from repetitive motions I'm not used to, but from sticking the needle into my finger tips all day. Ouch!

Karen just left. She got everything done she wanted. We took some nice pictures of her for her professional site and her blog. We dinked around with my scanner for way too long trying to get the scanned text to look right. I was using the default "professional mode" setting to scan. The text was turning out all blurry, but changing over to the "Auto mode," where I couldn't screw with the settings, fixed the whole thing. Too bad I wasted about an hour of Karen's time before figuring that out. D'oh! The samples look good and the text, while tiny, is readable.

The results look great and it was nice to have company. She took me out to dinner, which she didn't have to do. We went to the Corner Bakery so I was able to show her Mike. Mike is a guy who works 60 hour weeks at the bakery. I am a woman addicted to the D.C. Chicken salad. So I'm a regular and Mike knows my name. He is cute, friendly and way too young for me. He can't be over 21. Too bad. Karen says I should find out if he has older brothers. We were there near closing time so he brought over a paper bag stuffed with bagels and muffins. I sent them home with Karen.

Well, back to the costume.