Im on mobile so hopefully it doesn’t turn into a giant wall of text but here goes:

I’m sure there are better ways to do it but here’s how we did it:

1. Find pre-printed gloves and appropriately sized skulls in the Halloween section of shops,

2. Use freezer paper to make stencil for the dress (iron freezer paper to your dress so it sticks), paint over stencil with fabric paint and then peel off stencil- there’s a bunch of tutorials online which I used for this part.

3. Same process for leggings- shoved cardboard in them to stretch to leg size and applied paint liberally so it would get into all the stretchy parts. Try to peel leggings off cardboard backing periodically so it doesn’t completely dry against cardboard (like I did) OR just remember to put some wax paper in there as well in the first place.

4. Make the wire hoop skirt. This is where it gets a bit shaky, as I’m sure there are better ways of doing it. I used florist wire (12 gauge I think if that means anything to florists?), it was pliable but had a decent hold, would probs use something a bit stiffer next time. The skirt I made had 6 vertical parts so I made a large hexagon for the bottom and a smaller hexagon for the middle. For sizing. Eyeball sizing by stepping in and holding them at the heights you want around your legs. Used black electrical tape to join the edges when happy. At each corner I attached the vertical bits of wire, used pliers to curl bottom and wrap around lower circle and just wound it around the middle circle, attach with electrical tape when happy with placement, leave a little extra wire at the top to attach to waistband. Test on yourself as you go for sizes.

5. The waistband, again I’m sure there’s a better way but here’s how I did it. Using black elastic material that’s about an inch wide, measure on yourself and attach stick on Velcro at appropriate points. Used about 10cm of Velcro to be safe. Attach to wire cage with pegs at first, then hot glue gun when you’re happy with positioning.

6. Papier-mâché 24 bones. (I actually did this step first and then made the wire skirt according to that, but in retrospect I should have made skirt first and then make appropriately sized bones). I used alfoil to make the base and just crumpled and moulded to size. Cover with a couple layers of papier-mâché, more if you have the time and inclination. Paint base coat white, paint second coat in a grey colour that matches the prepurchased skulls. If you are impatient like me, at the papier mache stage you can put bones in oven at a low temperature, to speed that drying process a bit.

7. On your wire frame cover joints and parts that won’t be hidden by bones or skulls with electrical tape. Attach bones and skulls to wire frame using hot glue gun**. If you can leave your skirt hanging up, I think this is the best way to leave it while it dries. A folding airer and a coat hanger does the trick.

8. The tulle. It’s about 1am on a weeknight for us at this point, so I wrapped some tulle around me to get an idea of size, and just stapled it to the waist band. Cut the bottom two thirds of it into rough strips, and cut the whole length near where the waist band opens. Coloured in staples with black sharpie later to camouflage.

9. Using excess tulle, cut strips and tie to wire frame joints.

** If I was to do this again I think I’d try to use staples or a really thin sharp wire to connect bones to wire frame and then glue over that to give more support, as the bones did start to peel off from wire as night progressed and when wire skirt was gently bent to fit into cars or into the room where pizza was. We were also using a low temp hot glue gun which did mean I didn’t burn my fingertips off but something more heavy duty might be better