Up, up and awaaaaaaaaay!!!

Saturday me and boys attended the 4th annual Arklatex Comic Convention. We're not fans of comic books or anything like that but we are fans of dressing up in costumes. Traditionally people attending cons dress up as their favorite comic book superhero or villain or favorite video game or sci-fi movie character but we don't keep up with that kind of stuff so we went a different route with our costumes.

For $26 total I dressed us all up as characters from the Disney/Pixar movie "Up". If you haven't seen Up here's a brief summary:

Carl Fredricksen is a retired 78-year-old balloon salesman. When Carl was a child, he met and eventually married a girl named Ellie who grew up in a small Midwestern town. Ellie always dreamed of visiting South America, but she died before she got a chance. Now, when developers threaten to move him into an assisted living home, Carl decides to fulfill his promise to Ellie. To accomplish this, he uses 10,000 balloons to make the house fly—but unwittingly takes a chubby eight-year-old Wilderness Explorer named Russell with him. The two opposites match up for thrilling adventures as they encounter wild terrain, unexpected foes, and all the terrifying creatures that wait in the Venezuelan jungle.

Here's a breakdown of our loooooow budget homemade costumes:

Husband as Carl Frederickson

All clothing and white hairspray - already owned

Glasses and balloons from Just A Dollar Store 

Total cost of costume= $7 

River as Russell the Wilderness Explorer

Hat, felt for DIY sash, tee shirt and scarf - Michael's Arts & Crafts

Shorts and other - already owned

Total cost of costume = $10

Me as Kevin the bird

Dress, tights, boots - already owned

Feathers - Micheal's Arts & Crafts

Total cost of costume - $9

This costume is now one of my favorites. I love the colors, the makeup was fun to do and the outfit was actually pretty comfortable.

At the con I handed out flyers for the faire -  but since we got there kind of late, the crowd had thinned out quite a bit. I set a personal marketing goal for myself to hand out 150 flyers but a few people from my crew were already there and had already beat me to the punch. So I set small stacks of flyers all over the place; in the bathroom, by the water fountains and on any surface that had people near it. I cheated!

 In the photo below: the guy to my left is the master of ceremonies of the faire - he's my right hand man and our unofficial mascot. To my right is our newest addition Belinda who is now in charge of the children's activities at the faire since I simply just don't have the time with the new babe coming.

"Lady Loki" in the upper left corner is also a part of my crew and the lady below her is her aunt and she's a huge supporter of the faire.

Overall the con was ok. Well,  it's really hard to judge since we're not comic nerds but it was a great excuse to get out, promote the faire and dress up.

Have you ever been to a comic convention?

Do you like to dress up in costumes?