This year I was perplexed, "What should I be for Halloween?" I wondered. I am one who appreciates a challenge, but had a costume last year that fell flat, despite my best efforts. This year I wanted a costume that was the following:
- Creative and handmade
- Culturally relevant
- Not overly controversial (I thought about Ann Romney, but that would probably open a big can of worms I'm not ready to open in relaxed social environments with Democrats or Republicans)
- Not overly sexy (I'm not feeling overly sexy recently)
My choice: swimmer, Missy Franklin who won four gold medals and one bronze this year.
After some Pinterest searching and a little help from Alphamom, I had a modified plan of action and came up with these medals -
They aren't perfect, as you will soon find out, but they will do the trick for a big Halloween party in my future.
For the costume itself, I ordered a grey track suit online, dug up an old black leotard, and purchased a bright pair of athletic shoes. Before my scheduled social activities I plan to wet my hair and put some gel in so it looks wet throughout the night.
For the medals, I purchased two blocks of Sculpey III clay - one in gold and one in hazelnut, since Ms. Franklin has 4 gold medals and 1 bronze. However, in retrospect, I should have bought 2-3 blocks of the gold to make 4 medals. The final product was not as high quality or as color consistent as I would have liked, but from the front they look a-OK.
For the ribbons, I purchased about 3 yards of purple ribbon and some fabric paint in order to adorn the medals with "London 2012" so everyone gets the hint. In addition, I used 20 gauge wire, the top of a lip gloss, tooth picks (not recommended), wax paper, the bottom of a glass, a smooth cylindrical glass, purple thread, and a needle. My supplies are pictured below.
I started out wrapping the wire around the bottom of the Coke glass (pictured). I wrapped the wire around the bottom 5 times to create uniform circles that would add stability and uniformity to the final medals. I used the needle nose pliers to wrap the ends together and keep the circles circular. Note: have enough wire to do a test circle first.
After completing all 5 circles, I added an extra piece of wire to serve as the ribbon support. Once again, use the needle nose pliers to wrap the ends of the extra piece of wire.
After your circles are complete, cover the ribbon supporting mechanism with clay (this is where I ran into trouble not having enough gold clay and had to use hazelnut). Then, in uniform amounts, roll the clay into even balls - one ball for each medal. Also note, the gold clay is markedly more brittle than the hazelnut color. It might be in the way the clay was colored. The moral of the story is, you need a lot more gold than hazelnut if you're planning on kickin' it Missy Franklin style!
You need to make sure the clay is warm. The clay warms when you roll it in your hands, so work on only one medal at a time.
One at a time, roll out each one of the balls into a flat circle. Make sure your flat surface is covered in wax paper and that you put a layer of wax paper between your clay and rolling pin. If you don't own a rolling pin, which I don't, you may use a flat sturdy glass. A pint glass works well. Once your ball is rolled into a flat circle, position it on top of the wire circle and flip the medal over.
When the medal is flipped over, begin taking the excess clay from around the perimeter and smush it up around the sides of the wire frame (yes, I know "smush" isn't a real word, except on the Jersey Shore, but just go with it). Note: If you don't construct the medals one at a time the clay will likely break as you pull it around the edges. The warmer the clay is from being worked in your hands, the better.
If you use the amount of clay that I used for the number of medals I needed, you will be short clay. To cover the remaining bits of wire, use the hazelnut clay, which is more malleable. It stinks because that technically makes your medal one sided - you don't want anyone to see the janky side of your medal, but in a pinch the two toned medal will work.
Once you finish the back, flip over the medal and start on the front. For this design, I used the same basic design as Alphamom. With the cap of a chap stick, press in your Olympic rings. Note: a toothpick does not really work for this with Sculpey III. A toothpick moves around the clay and makes it look messy, whereas an imprint from the cap is much cleaner.
Next, I took a piece of wire and added some perimeter design to make the medals look a bit fancier. Once again, thanks go to Alphamom!
You bake Sculpey III on a glass pan at 275 degrees Fahrenheit. I baked these for 30 minutes and while I baked, I got started on my ribbons.
Separate your ribbons into 5 equal pieces. Be sure to get sturdy ribbon so that they don't fall apart or break letting your medals fall to the ground and smash to smithereens. I also use an old school ballet trick - in a safe place (like over the sink) singe the ends of your ribbon with a match or lighter. To do this, lightly move the flame near the tip of the cut ribbon, which melts the edges just enough to prevent fraying. Be sure not to get the flame too close to the ribbon since you want to avoid actually lighting the ribbon on fire by accident.
On each ribbon, I wrote about a quarter of the way down "London 2012" with fabric paint. Note - try this before you go crazy on the ribbon. You'll see one of my ribbons is off and it's because I didn't test my writing skills on the ribbon first. Ugh.
Once the medals are cool enough, slide them onto the ribbon, then sew the ends of the ribbons together. Obviously, you want to be sure ribbon will fit around your head before you do this (duh).
Once your medals are completely cool and your fabric paint is dry, you'll be ready to rock and roll as Missy Franklin this year. A culturally relevant non-controversial choice, done and done.
So, perhaps the question remains, "What will The Hobokenista be this year for Halloween?"
The answer? "Awesome."
Hobokenista, OUT!
