Since I have a rather overflowing closet with lots of costume-y pieces I decided to try to utilize my growing vintage inspired wardrobe for my Halloween costume this year instead of buying materials to make something entirely from scratch.

Combined with a converted serving tray, hair and makeup and I had my Vintage Cigarette Girl costume!

The vinyl pillbox hat is one I made and posted about before. The top and hemmed skirt are thrifted pieces. The fishnets were purchased new as they are actually seamed stockings and I had been coveting them.

I attached a thrifted trimming piece from my stash to the tray with double sided tape and added a ribbon strap. About a month back I sent out a request to friends to start collecting empty cigarette boxes and I filled these with candy in addition to purchasing some “Candy cigarettes” which had cool retro boxes. I Mod Podged a little “tip jar” over a tissue box and filled a few metal cups with other assorted candies.

Of course I decided a couple weeks before Halloween that I really needed some vintage style gloves, because apparently I’m a crazy person and just can’t stick with simplicity. Eunny Jang’s “Ladylike Gloves” from Interweave Knits was just the pattern I needed. I had some Classic Elite Yarns Silky Alpaca Lace in my stash that worked perfect too.

My only mods were to work 5 rows of garter stitch instead of the applied I-cord edging as well as adding black seed beads to the backwards loop cast-on. I added them every other CO stitch, but wish I had done every stitch to make it a little more noticeable. These were down to the wire to finish, wove in the ends around 11pm the night before our costume party, ha. Total cost, around $10 (for stockings and candy cigarettes).

When a friend of mine decided she wanted to be Cleopatra I excitedly offered to help make the costume for her too. This was a fun one to create! We got a bed sheet from the thrift store that I cut up to make the dress, adding a graphic border in blue fabric paint pen. The blue veil and brown scarf for around the hips I had on hand. Then I got a gold fabric dress while thrifting to cut the collar out of, adding iron on interfacing to give it structure. The dress even had ties that I cut up into arm bands. Had fun decorating these with gold puff paint and gluing on craft jewels. She bought a headress, spray painted some flip flops gold and that was the finished costume!