Three more days in September. It makes me both sad and excited. Sad that the first 'ber is behind us and excited because my favorite month of the year, October, is just around the corner. Nope. It's not birthday month. And it's not Christmas either. Maybe some years it has been one or the other of those, but Halloween wins hands down 95% of the time.
October is more than just the buildup to Spook Night, it about the changing of the leaves. It's about the weather finally cooling down and the rains beginning, hopefully. Today its sunny and 84 degrees outside. Whoopie. I've had enough of summer and dry conditions. I know a lot of people would love to live in this Mediterranean climate, but the grass is always greener as they say.
We had that enticing and most welcome bit of rain a week ago, and for the next few weeks, it's all about shuffling about in dry oak leaves and dressing up my dolls in Halloween costumes.
Peggy Sue is the perfect child doll for Halloween costumes. Because she's a child of the 1950's, her costumes are delightfully vintage and reminiscent of a time long ago. A time of innocence. One of not being very PC. Whoops! Did I say that? Well, it's true. This is just the way things were. No need to wring your hands over it or start a march. It was just that way and no one thought a whole lot about it as times were high with end of WWII, young people marrying, buying starter homes and starting families. Back then it was possible to own a car and a home and be able to afford both. But, yes, we've come a long way in the last 70 years...maybe.
Peggy Sue has a Woolworth's witch costume, a gypsy costume, and a mechanical man costume. There were many more Halloween costumes drawn by Irma Wilde for Jack and Jill Magazine for the inserts, "Who will you be? and What will you be?" Of the choices I had, there was a clown (boring), a ballet dancer (double boring), and a fairy princess (so common).
The costumes I loved were the Indian, Chinaman, Hobo and Gaucho. All boys' costumes, but I knew I'd be treading in dangerous territory with any of these, so I was perplexed as to what to do for Peggy Sue this year. Those costumes were really cute, too. What would Irma Wilde draw today?
So, I changed tactics and decided I'd make a witch costume for Cissy. A big, beautiful, fancy good witch costume, and I began poking around on Pinterest for 1950's pretty/good witch costumes, and guess what came up? Wendy the Good Little Witch! I loved Casper the Friendly Ghost as a child. I really loved it because it was about haunted houses, and improbable ghosting things, and that sweet little ghost Casper.
I hadn't seen a Casper cartoon since the 60's so I started looking them up on the Internet and fell in love with him, and one of his close friends, Wendy, all over again. What was Caspser's schtick?
Casper was a friendly ghost who was always looking for a new friend. He'd be walking along, maybe singing a tune and daydreaming out loud about finding a new friend, and run into a person, or more's the case, an animal. At first the potential friend would smile and say hello, but within a second, their eyes would bug out, they'd get those spinning wheel legs and shout "A g-g-g-g-ghost!" and take off. Poor Casper.
He was also plagued by three very mean uncles who loved to do what ghosts are supposed to do, and that is haunt houses and frighten their inhabitants. They'd also scare Casper and bully him miserably. Poor Casper.
But Casper had good friends on his side and one of them was Wendy. She'd come to his aid with her friendly magic, and usually after he had tried to do something nice and screwed it up.
Wendy and Casper were portrayed as young "children". The first
Casper cartoons were written between 1945 - 1959. When I began watching them on Saturday mornings, this was The New Casper Cartoon Show. The voices had changed from the originals, but the shows were still very sweet. I loved how Casper could go through walls and turn himself into helpful things like a sheet to sail a boat. I've had more fun researching and watching the old cartoons on YouTube and reading up on the history of Harvey Comics.
What I discovered in all of this is that Casper is still out there, only much updated of course, movies have been made, and in 1984 or 1985, Harvey Comics came out with Casper and Wendy ephemera. Little figurines and ceramic tea lights and all kinds of cute things to take up space in the house that I have no business buying.
Yet, Casper marketing was huge back when I was a child. Another thing my mother kept me from learning about. If it wasn't in the Christmas Sears Wishbook, it didn't exist.
It was in discovering Wendy the Good Little Witch that I stumbled upon Madame Alexander's 8" Wendy version. And it came with a small version of one of the comic books. Of course, I had to have it. Seriously. That's mine in the second photo up there. By the time she arrived I'd already finished designing and sewing Peggy Sue's costume. Good thing. Because I would have been tempted to copy it. This was MA's version. Let me have my own.
My friend, Heather, will recall me fussing about not being able to find a decent red knit, and this costume was what I needed it for. The knit I used was something I had on hand which is mostly Lycra. I used it in a red Christmas holiday gown for Grace Marie Fitzpatrick. There was plenty to play with, although I would have liked the fabric to be a bit heavier in weight with more of a cotton blend. What happened to that nice poly/cotton blend stuff?
Anyway, I created Wendy's outfit as a stretch romper with a cowl
neckline, and a cartoon formed witch's hat. Study the cartoons and drawings, and you might come away with an all-in-one hat/romper. Madame Alexander managed this pretty well, but I went for the separate hat look. It's a cartoon costume. I was studying the older, green witches' costumes and knew for certain that they did not wear rompers with attached hats. Their hats were drawn to blend into their dresses in many cases, so who is correct? It's a cartoon. An illusion. Your mind tells you hat and suit, hat and dress. Pick it apart like I do, and you'll drive yourself nuts.
The bottom line is that I had a blast making this, and needle felting a Casper. I haven't had so much fun creating a costume since...well...Mechanical Man last Halloween.
I was telling a friend of mine that right now, what's most important to me, and what brings me the most enjoyment is nostalgia from my past. And Casper the Friendly Ghost is right up there.
Here's Casper. He has a really big, round head. I was stabbing away at his little ghostly form and wondering why it just wasn't coming together. I mean, what could be so tough about an all-white blobby cartoon figure? Plenty if you don't get it right. What helped was looking at the figurines that had been made of Casper from the 1984-6 collections. I'm still wondering what brought this all about, but it must have been a feature film of some sort. The 80's are sort of lost years to me and I certainly wasn't keyed into Casper the Friendly Ghost at the time. Maybe I should have been.
Anyway, the figurines really helped. It's been a while since I needle felted and made hands. Luckily Casper only has four fingers. Or three fingers and a thumb. I know I've done better, but Casper was only meant to be a costume accessory and not an actual character, so I beg forgiveness.
That's pretty much how Peggy Sue came to receive a Wendy the Good Little Witch costume for Halloween this year.
Having way too much fun over here. Cissy will get her masquerade party dress. I'm just waiting for a shipment from China for some netting lace. I have something else that will work if it doesn't get here in a couple of weeks. You see, young women like Cissy, went to masquerade parties. So did Barbie. Remember vintage Barbie and Ken's masquerade costumes? These will always be two of my favorite vintage Barbie costumes.
Attached are some fun examples of vintage Casper ephemera. I have to explain the rubber Casper that looks like a carrot. When you squeeze him, his eyes pop out. Too funny. I really love the lampshade. I would love to have a room devoted to old tin and wind-up toys and lampshades like this. Wouldn't that be fun? And there's a sampling of my favorite comic book covers that I found online.
For you, here are two little drawings you can save off and color just for fun. October is simply the best in so many ways. I love Halloween. Let's keep playing dolls, reading good books and taking walks in nature.
in the 1920s. They helped popularize Halloween decorating in the U.S. And oh how I love to decorate at Halloween!
