Aladdin & Genie on Flying Magic Carpet!

One of my friends always said I looked like Aladdin, so I decided to go for on Halloween but instead of just some pajamas & a red hat, I wanted to crate a stunning optical illusion that made people do a double take. The trick was to design a costume that was visually stunning but also sturdy & comfortable enough to wear. I started with a final picture in my head of what it should look like and then reversed engineered the costume, leaving room for adjustments as needed. The first step was to created the body of a the Genie. I found super sturdy styrofoam from the hotel I worked at and added balloons for bulk and paper mache to coat it and give it firm texture. For the arms I used styrofoam pool floaties and added balloons for muscle and bulk and paper mache. Once it was dry and hard, I painted the costume but found bumping into things was chipping away at it so I got rolls of blue tape and covered everything. I then got an old backpack and cut out the front and used the back and the arms as the X frame around my body and a bungee cord around my waist to hold the costume in place. I got a prayer rug from an islamic store so it would have that middle east look to it and used a stiff cardboard plank under the rug for the. The Head was two balloons taped together to make a big head and paper meched and taped. I got toddler white pants and shinny toddler shoes for the lower half of Aladdin. I had a lovely should piece that I got when I was in Brazil that was perfect to go on top of the shoulders of the Genie and I could glue his head in place. This was a massive undertaking and required over 20 trips to my local hardware store and over 35 hours of work but it was also a labor of love and so much fun to see people's faces light up when they saw it..Happy Halloween!!