When I was notified that my friend’s birthday was 80’s themed, I immediately started plotting and planning costumes for it. I have always wanted to pull off a Ghostbuster themed couples costume and now I had the perfect opportunity. My husband as Venken, and me as the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. My poor husband. He just wanted me to be a sexy aerobics instructor or Madonna dressed like a virgin, but I was having none of it!

I began the marshmallow head by shaping chicken wire for the head and hat. I figured out that I needed gloves while doing this only after I had suffered several chicken-like scratches. Ugh.

I used wire to bind and shape the structure before paper machéing the entire thing. Two layers of paper gave it enough strength for the final form.

I used felt to create the bib as well as the band around the hat, the ball on the top and the ribbon hanging down. For the STAY PUFT writing I simply used acrylic paint on the felt which worked well. I hot glued a headband on the roof of the structure so it would stay stable on my head. Lastly, I added detail to the face.

For the Ghosterbusters costume I created the logo out of felt and sewed it onto a khaki shirt and paired that with khaki pants and hiking boots. I did make one more and added it to my bathing suit to give a teaser to our costume during the day at the pool.

For the backpack I used just that, a backpack as a frame and then constructed a box that fitted over it. To create the shape of the box, I taped a few together, paper machéd it and then painted on details. I then used a vacuum hose as the busting gun.

The googles were the easiest. I glued two toilet paper tubes to a pair of science googles, paper mashed around the area where they joined and then painted them.

It was an amazing weekend and I have extreme satisfaction in accomplishing a costume I have always wanted to do. Thankfully the marshmallow head survived and will live to see another day because bustin’ makes me feel good!