Halloween with Goodwill Pt. 1 - Flower Boy

Two weeks ago, the New York/New Jersey division of Goodwill asked a few of their favorite bloggers to take on a Halloween challenge. I had the honor of being included in their list. Each of us were given a $30 stipend to create a Halloween look using items found in one of their locations. I chose to go to their three-level Harlem location, one of my personal favorites in the city. 

This challenge, while really fun, was especially difficult because Halloween is a new holiday for me. Raised in a strict Christian house, I never celebrated it growing up. Halloween was the devil's holiday (literally), so that meant us kids were either sitting at home watching t.v., or at church (one church we attended had an alternative called "Hallelujah Night," which is a whole other topic of discussion). 

As a result, now that I'm older I still have a few reservations about Halloween. Not necessarily regarding its demonic inferences, but due to the idea of creating an extravagant, silly and/or scary costume for just one night's use. I decided to use this challenge, then, as a way to create fun photo props that I can use for Halloween and beyond. The first photo prop I created was a flower crown. 

I feel like a greek god, a saint or something else classical and romantic. I like this type of beauty. 

This inspiration for this in Goodwill came from an unusual source:

I spotted this wreath, but it was a bit too expensive for my budget. Instead, I found a few fake flowers to create my crown. I also found a beautiful silk red robe, but decided against it while creating the final look, opting instead for a simple white piece of fabric I had in my closet. Goodwill had a great array of material, though, so it's easy to recreate this simple look at their nearest location. 

This headpiece was pretty easy to create. I found a few shimmery wire stems that served as a great base, then wrapped the wire stem of the fake flowers around them and each other until I had a size that fit my head. The flowers popped off their stems pretty easily, so I mixed the different flowers I found until I had a design I liked. Unfortunately, I couldn't use the beautiful red bouquet in the photo above because it was made out of a wooden and styrofoam material, and wasn't easily malleable. It's so pretty to look at though, isn't it?

I hope to create a proper tutorial for making a fake flower crown in the future. In the meantime, you can find a great tutorial using fresh flowers on Etsy, although the steps I used to create my version is different.

Once I'm finished wearing my new crown, it makes a great addition to my room.