Feeling Haunted? Be A Paper Doll For Halloween!
Paper Doll isn’t much of a fan of scary things. While I respect Stephen King’s talents, I won’t read his books. Joey from Friends hid The Shining (and later, due to Beth’s death scene, Little Women), in the freezer. Rather than hiding books, I’ve hidden myself, and have been known to hide in the closet when things get too scary, like during the recent premiere of 666 Park Avenue. (Hey, at least the closet is organized enough to make space for me during such tribulations.)
I prefer Halloween costumes to be delightful or punny, rather than terrifying. As a child, my go-to Trick-or-Treat costume was a gypsy fortune teller, though that owes at least as much to Paper Mommy‘s lack of sewing skills as to my fear of gore. (One gold lam top, a full, vibrant skirt and a painted face of exotic makeup, plus one faux-crystal ball, all go a long way towards maintaining peaceful mother-daughter relations without keeping a mommy up until all hours.) Costume creativity was not our strong suit; had our sheets been white rather than pastels, I might have been Casper for a dozen years running.
Even if professional organizers had been widely known in the early 1970s, I doubt Paper Mommy and I would have been able to conceptualize a costume. While everyone knows that superheroes (like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman) hide their secret identities behind milquetoast, garden-variety guises (Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Diana Prince), we organizing superheroes always look just like everyone else (if a bit more disheveled after climbing around under desks and in the depths of closets).
Even now, the idea flummoxes me. If tiny Trick-or-Treaters came to your door with tickler files in one hand and label makers in the other, would they get fun-sized chocolate candy bars or, like Charlie Brown, coal-like lumps of rock?
Forget Halloween costumes for a moment — paper can be scary all on its own. Piles of unopened mail, haunting us three days after we return from vacation, can terrify the best of us. Bulging files (and filing cabinets) that haven’t been purged in years take on a mustiness as frightening as Miss Havisham’s wedding banquet. And missing VIPs, passports and financial documents — ghosts, basically — might send you screaming into the night!
Who needs the frights of Halloween?
Thus, I hope readers will indulge me today in going slightly far afield by making this Halloween not quite so scary. Rather than paper organizing tips, per se, let’s look at ways your little ones might (inexpensively) emulate a superhero that’s near and dear to my heart.
I submit for your adoration this DIY paper doll costume from the smart people at Spoonful, courtesy of Disney’s FamilyFun.com.
2012 Disney FamilyFun Magazine, Photograph by Ed Judice
I’m also impressed with blogger Sadie of SlapDashMom’s charming $1 DIY Halloween Costume Tutorial: Paper Doll, which helps parents create paper doll costumes based on their children’s favorite outfits.
By the way, SlapDashMom proved to be a treasure trove a resources, including a recommendation for Everyday Sugar’s design for a Paper Mommy-approved take on Robert Munsch’s modern classic, the children’s book Paper Bag Princess. The last-minute costume idea requires about the same (non-existent) skill set as my MARCPO conference flapper design from last week, but with eminently improved results.
2008 Everyday Sugar
And for not-too-scary paper monsters, check out the amazingly creative parenting site Wee Society’s Weeblog how-to’s for creating “Wee Alphas,” a Fantastically (but not too) Frightening Fox, a Jovial Jack O’lion, a Haunting, Hoo-hoo’ing Owl, and my favorite, the Ghoulish & Giggly Gorilla.
Seriously, how scary AREN’T these? 
Not only do you just need paper bags, construction paper, glue and scissors, but the costumes are inexpensive, easy to make and simple to tuck away in a pre-schooler’s knapsack. These paper-bag based costumes are so simple and well-explained, even Paper Doll could make them, which is saying quite a lot!
CoolestHomemadeCostumes.com knows that sometimes costumes are a family affair and shared this adorable user-submitted mommy/baby paper doll costume set.
The instructions are a twinge vague, but you have to give Diane from Texas credit for using old-timey wallpaper to create the image.
2011 Diane from Texas
And finally, for those of us who aren’t so adept at following craft instructions from simple illustrations, this step-by-step video from Better TV.com hits the spot.
So, if work or life or bad weather got in the way, and you weren’t so organized with your plans this year, you may be finding yourself searching, in vain, for an inexpensive, last-minute costume. If you’re child’s panicked howls could wake the dead, see if your kid is willing to play Paper Doll*.
*Label maker not included.
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