We’re all Harry Potter fans at my house. The whole family has read all the books and seen all the movies. So it was no surprise when my son announced that this year, he wanted us to be characters from the popular series for Halloween.
Blonde-haired, blue-eyed Nick wanted to be (surprise!) Harry Potter. Dad, with the addition of a long, black wig and an uncharacteristic snarl, would be Professor Snape; and Mom, the boys decided, was going as Professor Sprout. I’d like to say their decision was based on my expertise with plants; but alas, I kill everything I touch so it was probably based on my rotund appearance.
The costumes were pretty easy to put together. We already had capes in the closet from a vampire Halloween a couple of years ago (we always seem to go in some sort of a family theme), and Nick just wore his church clothes underneath (white shirt, black pants, black shoes). We bought a cheap pair of round glasses at a thrift store, and glued some yellow ribbon stripes onto a piece of red fabric to make a reasonable facsimile of a Gryffindor tie. The printed Gryffindor emblem would have looked great on the cape, if I had remembered to put it on there.
Professor Snape’s costume was equally easy: black shirt and pants under the cape, and a thrift-store wig. A dowel cut into 12” pieces and washed with watered-down brown paint became our wands. We painted on glowing white tips (for casting spells), and black handles to complete the look.
Professor Sprout’s costume was basically easy, all except the one thing she’s most noted for: a mandrake. I searched and searched the Internet for pictures of a Harry Potter mandrake to try to make one, but without much success. So we brought out the movie and watched it again, then put on our thinking caps.
I figured if I could find a small doll, I could make a mandrake out of that. The only thing I could find was a little 6” stuffed doll all done in plush pink fabric. Sigh. It would have to do. Time was short.
I cut the top off a brown paper lunch bag and slipped the doll into it up to her neck. I cut the bottom of the bag in half, then twisted the two halves over and around the doll’s legs and taped them closed, but left the long pieces of bag hanging tapered below her legs. Then I did the same thing with the head and arms; cut off the bottom of the bag, and cut it to twist around the doll’s arms, holding the bag in place with tape. (Sorry! I forgot to take pictures of the mandrake-making process!)
The finished mandrake looked OK, but still needed a little work; so I took a black marker and drew on some eyes and a wide open mouth (like it was screaming). Better, but not yet finished.
The final step was to cover the brown-paper-bag-wrapped doll with two pair of old pantyhose. I cut one of the legs off the first pair, about 18” long. I slipped the toe over the doll’s head, let several inches of stocking gather around her neck (to later sew the next stocking to), and cut the remainder of the stocking in two. I used those two pieces to cover the paper-bag arms, sewing it into place with a couple of quick stitches . The second pair was cut the same, then slipped over the bottom of the doll and sewn to the first pair around the doll’s neck. I cut the cotton crotch out of the second pair and sewed the pantyhose back together, leaving about 12” of one leg and about 18” of another leg hanging below. The final step was to cut the dangling pantyhose arms and legs into uneven lengths of 1/4” strips.
A few sprigs of artificial leaves stuffed behind the doll’s head and down into the costume completed the mandrake. He still resides in his lovely plastic pot in my office as a special memento of another wonderful evening with my family.
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