Project: Red Panda Halloween Costume

Howdy dudes! I meant to post this up sooner to be more in the Halloween spirit but I got sick and it got forgotten until today.

For Halloween I made my own red panda costume.  It was quite a bit of stuff to make so I took a "vacation" from my Etsy store and I am glad I did.  I was still working on sewing the last bits of my costume up until the morning of the Halloween party!

The breakdown:

• The red panda ears were made from faux fur that I stuffed and sewed on to a headband (which I also covered with fleece to match the vest)
• The vest was made with a McCall's fleece vest pattern but I added elastic to the back to try to make it a little more flattering.

• I made the mittens from a mitten pattern from my aunt and I added vinyl stolen from a pair of thrift store faux leather pants to make the paw pads.

• The red panda tail was hand-sewn from faux fur.  I failed a little at cutting out the stripes and accidentally trimmed off some of the hairs so the stripes look a little blocky. I sewed a loop of grosgrain ribbon to the top and attached it to a belt.
• I also made the leg covers out of faux fur.  I traced the bottom of a pair of flare leg jeans for the pattern.

I was planning on making a mask, but my first couple of attempts were veering toward dopey/ugly and not cute, so my mom suggested red panda face paint.  I mixed my own colors from one of those cheapo Halloween face paint palettes.  I put "powder" over the top to seal the color and keep it from being all greasy. For the rusty brown I used bronzer, for the black I used black eyeshadow, and for the white I used cornstarch (this was a last minute substitution since the white eyeshadow I bought didn't work)! I also couldn't find any of the costume adhesive to glue on my "sideburns" so I used eyelash adhesive and it worked surprisingly well!

I think all together it turned out pretty cute! I am also super glad that the face paint washed off, I was a little worried I would be going into work with a freaky face! Do you think the red pandas will accept me as one of their own? :D