Dia de los Muertos Party Costume

A friend of mine decided that she wants her Halloween party this year to be Dia De Los Muertos themed. She put out a call for help on a costume and I started putting some thought into it. There are a few ways you could go with the costume and I wanted to put a twist on it. Read on to find out what cool stuff I came across!

Instead of the traditional Mexican dancer dress I thought we’d go with a more pinup/rockabilly style to add a sexy flair. I found this awesome piece on eBay from seller c-unique.

I also did some looking into the traditional route for those of you who might prefer it. Another great eBay find from ramseyscreations.  All of the accessories I have picked out are meant to go with the rockabilly dress. In my opinion, you would only need the hair flower and makeup to finish the look if you go with the Mexican dancing dress.

You could go with whatever shoes suit your taste best but the addition of dulcemuertebows’s cute little clips would be a great idea!

What woman can leave the house without a purse? This adorable clutch from deluxejunque contrasts with the dress but keeps with the sugar skull theme.

Artistamuerta’s “Pretty In Pink” muertas rosary necklace is perfect for this costume, as is this fantastic charm bracelet by cosmictrinkets! And what Day of the Dead outfit could be complete without the requisite hair flower? A big, attention drawing one from Mandizzle fits the bill.

Now onto the sugar skull makeup! This link features several different tutorials for doing your own. There are many different styles – just find one that suits you best and go for it! And for those of you who don’t want to fool with makeup, Masquefaire offers many different masks that get the job done for you!

Put it all together and you will be one hot calavera!  

A Review - "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dreadfully Ever After"

The story opens with our newly married protagonists, Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam Darcy, defending their village from an army of flesh-eating “unmentionables.” But the honeymoon has barely begun when poor Mr. Darcy is nipped by a rampaging dreadful.
Elizabeth knows the proper course of action is to promptly behead her husband (and then burn the corpse, just to be safe). But when she learns of a miracle antidote under development in London, she realizes there may be one last chance to save her true love—and for everyone to live happily ever after.

Steve Hockensmith has done it again! I didn’t think the feeling could be any greater than it was when I finished “Dawn of the Dreadfuls” but it absolutely was! The feeling is one of simply not wanting a book to end. It’s one I’ve not had often but it was so strong when I finished “Dreadfully Ever After” that it was nearly painful. I LOVE this book!

The action doesn’t take long to start – only ten pages into the book the unmentionables infect Elizabeth’s beloved husband, Darcy. This is the event the entire book centers around as the Bennett family does their best to save him by putting their trust in Lady Catherine, befriending ninjas, and doing whatever necessary to lay hands on the fabled cure. Twists and shocking turns abound in the manner I’ve come to expect from the PPZ series. While we see less of Mrs. Bennett in this installment, we see much more of Kitty and Mary. Hockensmith develops their characters nicely, turns them around from the dislikeable (or at least, forgettable) personalities they had been before, and makes one nearly as fond of them as Austen made us of Lizzy and Jane.

London gets turned upside down, Lady Catherine finally gets what’s coming to her, and the whole family – with the exception of Mrs. Bennett – finds the happiness they all deserve. I am, however, saddened knowing that this is the last we are intended to hear of my favorite family from the Regency era! I thoroughly recommend “Dreadfully Ever After” to anyone who can read and if you haven’t yet indulged in “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” or “Dawn of the Dreadfuls” I suggest you do so! I suspect I will be reading all three again very soon: they have become my favorite books with “Dreadfully Ever After” unexpectedly slipping into the #1 spot!

"Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dreadfully Ever After" will be released on March 22nd, 2011.  You can pre-order from Amazon now.  You can also follow the book on Facebook to see what other early reviewers have to say about it!

Pirates vs Ninjas

Everyone knows that pirate and ninjas are mortal enemies so what could make for a more interesting party?! My friends Will and Natasha wanted to host a Christmas party but they wanted to set it apart from all the rest – a Pirates vs Ninjas theme is how they accomplished that task.  

                  I guess pirates and ninjas CAN get along!



                                         Oh…maybe not!

I was lucky to know about this party early enough that I could hit up some Halloween clearance sales and get some custom orders from Etsy for our costumes. Plus I had a ton of accessories from our Halloween 2009 gypsy costumes that worked great for this purpose! My underbust corset/vest came from CreationsByAngelia, the shirt from ohanasewing, and my earrings from Sillycut.

Our budget pirates - not too bad!

We had always wanted to do pirate costumes but had just never got around to it. I definitely see us building on them though, since we had to do these on a major budget after our Halloween spending. Things we’d like to add:

• A sword for my costume
• A replica pistol for each of us (mine was hollow plastic)
• Actual cuffed boots for us both instead of covers
• A gold tooth cover for me
• A convincing clip-on earring for him
• A real jacket for him instead of costume quality

I think everyone had a blast with the costumes and decorations and it really made for a unique, non-Halloween, party! They are thinking of making a tradition and I truly hope they do!



Ninjas were definitely in the minority that night (because everyone knows that pirates are WAY cooler!)



                               Avast ye hearties, yo ho!

           Ever seen pirates and ninjas playing Rock Band?  Well now you have!

Time Warp to Halloween 2010!

Now that my busy season is out of the way I finally have time to revisit my Halloween costume! If you followed my blog last year you know that I did an entire costume series and you may have been left wondering just what I was going to be. Well, my husband made the decision for me (since we normally like to do the matching thing) and we went with Steampunk!



My necklace is missing in this picture.

 At the point he decided on it, I had already made my Steampunk Halloween post (see http://customzombie.blogspot.com/2010/06/steampunk-halloween.html) so, basically, all of my creative work was done and the only thing left was to put together the pieces. Unfortunately, I couldn’t afford the awesome skirt featured in the original post. But I do have an awesome grandma that is a fantastic seamstress! So I bought my materials, packed up my machine and went to see her.

I made a few other changes to my original vision as well: the addition of half gloves, losing the ring, leaving off the spats, and switching the propeller necklace out for a compass one. I also painted a nerf gun to fit the part but it’s not really visible in my pictures.

I was extremely pleased with how the costume turned out (even though people kept asking me if I was supposed to be Amelia Earhart) and would be happy to have another chance to wear it!

I wish I could have found some affordable spats for him.

My husband’s costume was much more difficult to come up with, mostly because he can’t make up his mind that far out from Halloween. In all fairness, I started asking in April and he didn’t decide until July. We went with a scientist/genius persona. You know the type – absorbed in his work, a bit disheveled and distracted. We grabbed the pants, shirt, pocket watch and shoes from a previous costume (Victorian-era Dracula) and me/my grandma made his vest. A quick jaunt through the interwebs produced a bowler, arm bands, goggles, and non-prescription glasses. I picked up the magnifying tool attached to the glasses at a hardware store. We bought a Nerf Maverick N-Strike to paint for the purpose. It turned out great! His costume was a hit and he was very pleased with it, which is a feat in itself!

This was our first Steampunk adventure but I don’t believe it will be our last…we had way too much fun!

MIA for the Holidays

Wow, it's been a while since I've posted!  I'm sorry to leave you guys hanging - things have just been extremely hectic during the holiday season.  I'm busy today preparing for my New Year's party but I'll try to get some actual content up this coming week.  Topics to look forward to: 2010's Halloween costume and the return of the costume series, Pirates vs Ninjas, and Etsy item features.  Hope that's piqued your interest!

Have an awesome, safe New Year and I hope 2011 will be a great year for us all!

Q&A with Noiseless Clothing

Don’t want to support Hot Topic but love band shirts? Look no further! Noiseless Clothing fits the bill and you can bet that you won’t show up to the next concert wearing the same shirt as half the audience if you shop with Steph.  She also makes movie shirts and other one-of-a-kind creations!

CZ: Tell us a little about yourself!
NC: My name is Steph and I am the only person behind my Etsy shop, Noiseless Clothing. I’ve been sewing for a little over two years; my mom taught me the basics of how to use a sewing machine and patterns, etc, and the rest is completely self taught by trial and error and a heck of a lot of practice! Noiseless isn’t my full time job (boo hiss!) I work a minimum wage retail job full time to fund my obsession of band t-shirts and fabric. In my spare time (when I’m not sewing!) I love going to gigs, baking cupcakes and reading. I’m a simple girl at heart!

CZ: What type of items do you sell?
NC: I mostly make music inspired, one of a kind, women’s clothing with a few accessories here and there. As my line is music inspired, I make a lot of clothes out of band t-shirts but I also like to make anything that would fall under the ‘alternative’ stereotype whether that be emo, goth, punk, scene, etc. In the future I’d like to expand into jewelry and would also like to try my hand at screen-printing my own designs.

CZ: What is the inspiration behind your shop and what keeps you motivated?
NC: I take inspiration from so many things but my biggest inspiration is by far music. I go to a lot of gigs in my spare time, and I always used to get so fed up of boys always getting the best band t-shirts. So, I started cutting them up and turning them into something unique and sexy! If I’m making a top from a band t-shirt, I like to listen to the bands’ music while I sew. I find it gives me inspiration for the overall style of the piece I’m working on. As for what keeps me motivated, it’s simply a love of sewing. It’s all I think about and I honestly don’t think there is anything else I would rather do with my life.

CZ: What is the greatest compliment you have received about your work?
NC: Every compliment I receive is the greatest! The compliments that I treasure the most are from people that I’ve never met. Family and friends are great at complimenting my work but they’re kinda obliged to! I think it’s lovely that complete strangers take time out from their busy lives to drop me an email just to say that they love my clothes. The fact that people like something that I dreamt up and created from scratch is amazing. And as silly as it may sound, it kind of restores my faith in humanity and reassures me that there are genuinely nice people in the world!

CZ: When did you first realize that you weren’t “like the other kids”?
NC: It wasn’t a sudden realization, more of a conscious effort to NOT be like other kids. I gradually got more and more tired of following trends and trying to fit in with everyone else and it stopped making sense to me. I couldn’t understand why everyone wanted to be the same when we were all so naturally different. Around this time I discovered rock music and that greatly influenced my style and I just drifted apart from the crowd. This of course came with its downsides as I was a target for bullies but I point blank refused to conform. As difficult as it was being a victim of bullying, I think it really benefitted me in the long run as I’m now more certain of who I am and what I believe in compared to other people.

CZ: What’s a typical day in the life of this Dark Sider like?
NC: On the five days a week when I’m at work, I go to work (well duh!) come home around 6, grab some food and sew until 10/11 at night. I have a Blackberry so all my emails and convo’s from Etsy get forwarded to my phone so when I’m on my lunch break at work, I’m still focusing on Noiseless. On my days off, I do all the promoting and internet stuff, picture taking and pattern cutting. I try really hard to stick to this routine so I can have new items added to my shop on a regular basis. Oh and I occasionally manage to fit in a social life!

CZ: Do you prefer zombies or vampires?
NC: My obsession for vampires is slowly beginning to take over my life haha! I’m a huge fan of trashy vampire novels and movies and I even have a t-shirt saying ‘I love vampires’ so I think it’s safe to say I much prefer vampires. But not the sparkly ones. Don’t get me started on sparkly vampires!

CZ: Which horror character do you identify with most and why?
NC: I know it’s not generally a horror film but I’m going to say Wednesday Addams from the Addams’ Family. I looked her up on Wikipedia and is said “Wednesday is originally a pale, dark-haired, grim-looking little girl with a fascination with death and the macabre”. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I have an unhealthy obsession with the macabre and I just so happen to be dark haired and super pale!

CZ: Which elusive creature do you believe is more likely to be real: El Chupacabra or Sasquatch?
NC: I don’t really know much about either as they are both American ‘monsters’ but I think the UK version would be the Loch Ness Monster which I don’t believe to be real as most sightings have been proved to be fake. So on that theory alone, I’ll say neither.

CZ: Who is more likely to enslave the human race - aliens or robots?
NC: In my mind, a brief rain shower will instantly rust all the robots and I’m assuming they also have an off switch? So I’m going to say aliens.

CZ: What scares you?
NC: I’m TERRIFIED of spiders! No matter how small and pathetic they are, I will still scream and run out the room like a total girl haha! There was a spider in my car once while I was driving and it’s a miracle I didn’t crash. I don’t know what it is about them that creeps me out so much. Possibly the fact that they have too many legs or possibly the way they scuttle around so unnaturally. Just thinking of them is giving me shivers! Next question…..

CZ: When my undead masses take over will you be with us or against us?
NC: I’m gonna say with you. If you can’t beat them, join them right?

CZ: Any links you’d like included?
NC: My etsy shop - http://www.noiselessclothing.etsy.com/
My myspace page - www.myspace.com/noiselessclothing

Q&A with Living Dead Girl Nicole

All things blood, gore, and braaaaaaains can be found in Living Dead Girl Nicole’s shop! If you are a zombie fan, or horror in general, it’s a must-shop place. Read about her and what drives her art here and be sure to follow the links below!

CZ: Tell us a little about yourself!
LDGN: I find beauty in all things dark, spooky or mythical. Aspects of that are reflected not only in my style but also in my art work. When other little girls wanted to be ballerinas I wanted to be Elvira.... I still do! Some of my favorite things are horror movies/horror movie conventions, bats, Halloween (I'm a little obsessed and keep the décor out all year round), themed costume parties, Renaissance Faires, Tattoos (getting them and the whole art form itself), rock music/concerts (classic to heavy), fantasy and dark art, Universal Monsters and The Munsters. I love all things Rob Zombie, Tim Burton and Jim Henson. I have been with my high school sweetheart and soul mate, Frank, for 12 years this fall. We will be celebrating our 1 year wedding anniversary this Halloween. We have 2 cats, Ichabod and Sabbath, and live in our townhome filled of horror movie memorabilia, art and interesting collections of fun creepy things. My Mother-in-law says our house is like a "museum" ha ha. I love that!

CZ: What type of items do you sell?
LDGN: I like to draw, paint, scrapbook, craft and do anything that gets my creative blood flowing. So because of that my shop is a nice mix of various types of my artwork. I have prints of my celebrity portraits and misc drawings in my shop. I also have zombie head props/decorations which I make from rubber liquid latex and other fun materials. I also started a line in my shop I call Dead Girl Decay which consists of wearable art and accessories. Most of the items are for that dark spooky girl who still loves to express her feminine side or that pin up girl who likes a little danger in her wardrobe. As I create my shop will continue to expand. There really is no set limit on what I want to create and sell which I think makes my shop unique. It is always changing with new items to hopefully keep customers coming back for more.

CZ: What is the inspiration behind your shop and what keeps you motivated?

LDGN: My artistic passion to create is really what is the spine of my shop. It’s what inspires and holds it all together. Since the first time I picked up a crayon as a little girl and started to kick ass in coloring contests I have been inspired to do art. My Dad, being an artist himself, was a huge inspiration to me and my art growing up. When other little kids were learning how to color in the lines he was showing me how he shades and blends colors. Because I like creating a wide range of art I can switch up the items I make which allows me more room for expression without feeling overwhelmed by one medium. My celebrity portraits depict characters from cinema, television and music that I admire. My zombie head prop decorations come from my love of horror and wanting so badly to be a part of the horror movie industry. My Dead Girl Decay wearable art line was actually inspired by my own personal spooky but feminine style. I have a arm sleeve (tattoo) that consists of dark beautiful woman from cinema and television with a banner that says “Pretty Scary”. All the women I admire that are dark, mysterious and odd but still drop dead gorgeous. It really expresses who I am as a person and how they have inspired me to be me. I wanted to create items that I feel women like myself would wear.

CZ: What is the greatest compliment you have received about your work?

LDGN: Oh wow this is a tough one. I think it was a cross between a couple famous encounters. One when I met Cassandra Peterson. I gave her the portrait I drew of her as Elvira. And when she looked at it she said “Man this has been an art filled weekend. I have gotten a lot of great pieces.. but this one… this one.. is REEEEAAALY good!!!”. At that moment I realized a little girls dream could come true and I really think my heart literally skipped a beat. Another would be when I gave George Romero his “George” Zombie Head that I made of him. His manager walked me up to the front of the line when I showed him what I had to give to him. And when I walked up there I said “you always make zombies for all of us fans.. so I made you your very own zombie”. His eyes lit up. And he was like “WOW YOU made THIS!!! This is GREAT!!!” And he laughed and got a complete kick out of it and insisted we take a photo together with it. He displayed it on his table at the convention for the rest of the day and every time I walked by and saw it I got all giddy.

CZ: When did you first realize that you weren’t “like the other kids”?

LDGN: When I took my Barbie dolls and colored them with my Crayola markers to make them look “different”. When the Jem and the Holograms and their enemies the Misfits came out I was in little girl doll heaven ha ha. I liked them because they were different. They had bright colorful hair and makeup and flashy odd punk rocker clothes and they looked nothing like my Barbie. To this day I still enjoy looking nothing like my Barbie.

CZ: What’s a typical day in the life of this Dark Sider like?

LDGN: Every day is a new day to me with new opportunities. But typically I work full time in an office during the day (blah). My weekends are usually when I get the most time to unwind and do things as well as my art. My husband set me up a whole art area in our dungeon (some people call them basements) where I can go and hide and get lost in the creative madness. Art allows me to let my mind go of any stress and escape from the realities of the world. It truly makes me happy and keeps me sane.

CZ: Do you prefer zombies or vampires?

LDGN: Ever since I was a little girl and I watched the Lost Boys I was intrigued. My all time favorite is Bram Stoker’s Dracula (the book that started it all and also the movie). My wedding gown was even based off of Mina’s red dress in the film and the theme of our wedding was “Love Never Dies”. There is just something about a vampire that is dangerous, mysterious and sexy that sucks you in (no pun intended). I am also a big zombie fan. I always say if they attacked I would hope I just got bit so I could join 'em and not fight 'em. Yeah so you might drool a little and live off brains and flesh, but why spend the rest of your life running in fear.. when you could be the one that is chasing everyone down and being feared. But if I had the choice between the two I would definitely want to spend the rest of my days as one of Dracula's brides.

CZ: Which horror character do you identify with most and why?
LDGN: I would definitely pick Baby Firefly from House of 1000 Corpses and the Devil’s Rejects. I like how she can lure you in with her charm but the minute you piss her off - watch out! In ways I am the same way. I can be nice to you but the minute you cross me it's over. Not to mention I am a huge horror fan and I love the concept of her killing…….she laughs in your face and still looks hot while doing it! Sheri Moon Zombie also happens to be one of my idols. I simply adore her. I actually have a Baby Firefly tattoo on my leg and have met her a couple of times. She is simply a beautiful person all around hands down and amazing to her fans. If I was famous I would want to be the same way.

CZ: Which elusive creature do you believe is more likely to be real: El Chupacabra or Sasquatch?
LDGN: I think Sasquatch is more likely to be real (his "image" looks like a stage of evolution anyways ha ha) but I would hope that El Chupacabra was real because I find it more intriguing.

CZ: Who is more likely to enslave the human race - aliens or robots?
LDGN: Most definitely Aliens! I am sure they are already have a plan up their sleeves for 2012.

CZ: What scares you?
LDGN: I can handle all the spooky things that go bump in the night. I am more or less afraid of getting Alzheimer’s and not being able to remember the life I lived or the people I love. I know it’s a lot more serious of an answer than saying I am scared of spiders or clowns… but it’s truly my biggest fear.

CZ: When my undead masses take over will you be with us or against us?
LDGN: Well I am already a living dead girl!! So Go TEAM UNDEAD!

CZ: Any links you’d like included?
LDGN:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/LivingDeadGirlNicole
http://livingdeadgirlnicoleart.blogspot.com/