This hot glue alien parasite is easy and inexpensive to make, and is the perfect addition to a Halloween specimen collection. Although I didn't use this for my X-Files party, it reminds me a little of the alien parasite in the X-Files episode "Ice." You could also fill the vial with a colored liquid to make it look like you've embalmed the specimen, but I'm not sure if that would adversely affect your parasite if you want to reuse it for future years.
Materials:
*Hot glue and glue gun
*Vial
*Fine tipped black marker
*Label (see this post for creating potion labels)
*Thread
Directions:
*Apply some hot glue to the bottom of the vial's cork and create a line of hot glue going downward. Make sure that the line of hot glue is still short enough to fit inside the vial. Let harden.
*Once the hot glue has solidified, you can peel the parasite from the cork or leave it hanging from the cork, whichever way you like.
*Add a couple of eyes to the parasite using a fine tipped marker
Welcome to the final X-Files Darkness Falls post. Even if you're not planning on hosting an X-Files themed party, you can string up one of these cocoons in your yard as part of your Halloween decor. Instead of little green mites, perhaps your skeleton was the victim of a giant spider. Use your imagination, and have fun!
Materials:
*Plastic skeleton or bones
*Light colored "creepy" cloth (large mesh cheesecloth-like cloth sold at, e.g., Dollar Tree)
*Clear elastic cording
*Fake spider webbing
*Scissors
Directions:
*Lay your skeleton or bones on the "creepy" cloth. If you're working with loose bones, like I was, the bones may move around a bit as you're making this, so you may have to shift them around a few times.
*String the clear elastic through the edges of the cloth, slowly pulling the edges together. Creepy cloth tends to come as a rectangular sheet, which means that when you pull the edges together, you may get some uneven bunching at the top, which you can see a little bit in my pictures. I didn't think it was that much of a detraction, and if you have a tree way above eye level that you can hang it from, the bunching probably won't be noticeable.
*Tie the cording to hold the edges of the cloth together. Make sure the ends of the cording are long enough to tie around a tree branch or whatever you would like to hang your cocoon from.
*Pull spider webbing across the cocoon to give it a more web-like appearance. Use as much or as little spider webbing as you like.
An X-Files Darkness Falls party would hardly be complete without some little green mites crawling around. Removable vinyl makes it possible to stick a lot of these little buggers to your wall and remove them easily once you're done. If you keep the non-stick sheet you cut them on, you may be able to store them and reuse them for a future party.
Materials:
*Removable vinyl in lime green
*Silhouette CAMEO or other die cutter (could potentially be done by hand, but I would not recommend)
Directions:
*Import this little green bug template into your Silhouette or other die cutting machine's software program.
*"Trace" the template following the directions for your machine's software program. If you have a Silhouette CAMEO, you can check out this post for some info on how to create a cut file from a template.
*Create many, many copies of the bugs, as many as you can comfortably fit on a 12"x12" sheet of vinyl.
*Place a 12"x12" square of removable vinyl on your cutting mat in accordance with the directions on the package.
*Load the vinyl into your cutting machine and cut using the vinyl settings.
*Peel bugs off the cutting mat and stick to your wall.
*Once you're done with the bugs, they should peel up off the wall fairly easily. They may stick a bit to other surfaces, however. For example, I also put some on the TV, and those ones were a bit more challenging to remove. You may want to place one down and peel it up as a test to make sure that it peels off easily enough for your liking.
Before I get into today's post, I just wanted to let you know that this marks my 400th blog post on Amber's Craft a Week Blog! It's been almost 8 years now since I started this blog and I've managed to keep up with only an occasional missed post through the end of my undergrad career, through my master's, and now into my PhD. I'm excited and proud, and I hope to keep bringing you craft ideas for many years to come.
What better way to celebrate my 400th post than by presenting you all with a costume idea I've been trying to find a way to do for years, namely Dana Scully? When I was little, I think I related to Mulder the most. I wanted to believe in all things spooky. However, now as and adult and as a scientist, it's Scully's logical, scientific approach that I've come to appreciate. We didn't really go all out on Brian's Mulder look, so this post is mostly about Scully, although I do have a few Mulder costume suggestions in places.
The big obstacle preventing me from coming up with a Scully costume has been the hair. My hair is long and not red and I didn't want to permanently alter it for a costume, but decent looking red wigs are surprisingly hard to come by. This is where Colorista Hair Makeup in bronze/auburn comes into play. It's a temporary hair color that washes out after about one shampoo as long as your hair isn't a pale color.
It is important to note that this shade will NOT work for most people if you want a color close to Dana Scully's. If you look at the packaging, there's this one light brown range of colors where you get reddish look, but for darker or lighter hair colors, it looks like you'll get a pinker look. So if you have light brown hair, you may get good results, but if your hair is a different shade, it may not work so well. I would definitely recommend testing it on a section of your hair in advance to make sure it looks close enough to what you're envisioning.
Dana Scully Temporary Red Hair (for Dark Blond or Light Brown Hair)
*Starting from the roots of your hair, add a very thin layer of hair makeup to clean, dry hair. You want as little color as possible, because if you layer it on too thick, it will have a bit of a pinkish/raspberry color to it.
*When you're done with your costume, wash your hair as normal. I shampooed twice, but the color was almost all gone after the first shampoo.
Dana Scully Faux Bob
Materials:
*Hair elastic
*Bobby pins
*Hair spray (optional)
Directions:
*I mostly followed this video, although I skipped the teasing part and I also didn't use hair spray (the Colorista Hair Makeup hardens up a bit on its own). My hair certainly did not come out as nicely as hers, especially in the back, but it worked well enough.
Dana Scully or Fox Mulder Badge
Materials:
*Free printable Scully or Mulder badge (such as from here)
*Laminator (optional)
*Hole punch
*Lanyard
*Pen
*Double sided tape
Directions:
*Print out your badges.
*Sign the badges if they are not already signed to make them look realistic.
*Fold in half and tape wrong sides together.
*Laminate if you would like.
*Punch a hole in the top of the badge and attach to the lanyard.
Clothing Ideas
Scully wears a lot of suits, so a suit is a safe bet. I went with black pants, a black blazer, and a teal tank because that was what I already owned that looked like something she would wear, but a lot of people use a dark colored skirt suit and white button down shirt. For Mulder, a suit will work fine.
Makeup
For my makeup, I decided that earthy tones best fit Scully's vibe. For primer, we opted for e.l.f. tone correcting primer and e.l.f. eyelid primer. Brian used Temptu's Porcelain foundation for my skin and Temptu's Pebble eyeshadow along my lids. Brian went over the Pebble shadow with a rose gold colored shadow from e.l.f (it was in a palette with lots of different colors, so I'm not sure what it was called). He used e.l.f. liquid eyeliner in black for my upper lash line and an e.l.f. black pencil liner for my lower lash line. The mascara he used was also from e.l.f., although I'm not sure what it was called. For my lips, I used e.l.f. lipstick in Praline.
*Cake mix of your choice
*Green frosting of you choice
*White baking chocolate
*Green sugar crystals
*Skeleton mold
*Marshmallows
Directions:
*Prepare and frost the cake.
*Melt the white chocolate according to the package directions and pour into the mold. Let harden.
*Once hardened, pop the white chocolate skeleton pieces out of the mold.
*Melt a marshmallow slightly and pull apart to get spider web like strands of marshmallow. Wind these around the pieces of the skeleton. I was using vegan marshmallows, so they didn't melt super well and I only managed to create a few strands, but if you're using non-vegan marshmallows, you'll probably have better luck.
*Place the skeleton stop the cake.
*Sprinkle green sugar crystals over the skeleton to create little green bugs.
The X-Files has been one of my favorite shows since I was a kid. I have a memory of watching it with my my dad when I was about nine or so while my sister hid in the laundry corner with mom. I've always liked the monster-a-week standalone episodes better than the alien ones, and my favorite episode is "Darkness Falls," wherein luminescent mites exsanguinate people at nightfall. I've thought about hosting an X-Files themed party for a while now, but this was the time I finally got around to it. If X-Files seems a little creepy for a birthday party theme, you could also use this idea for a Halloween party.
I hosted my party this past Saturday. I've been a bit busy this summer so far, so I didn't get a chance to decorate as much as I would like to have. Instead, I decided to focus on my favorite episode, "Darkness Falls," and picked some key elements from that episode to recreate.
Over the next few weeks, I'll be showing you how I made the decorations, costumes, and cake for the party. But for now, here's a brief overview of the party.
As far as decorations went, I only made two for the party: a cocooned skeleton and green vinyl mites. In the episode, Scully and Mulder happen upon a giant cocoon, only to discover an exsanguinated human corpse inside. The culprits behind this cocoon are little green bugs. While they are present during the day, they remain inactive until the lights go out. The cocoon and the bugs are the two details from the episode that stick out the most to me, so those were the things I attempted to replicate.
Brian and I dressed up as Scully and Mulder for the party. I've been wanting to dress as Dana Scully for a while, but her hair has always been an obstacle. She's known for her signature red bob, whereas my hair is long and not red. I finally found a way to pull it off.
For food, we had a lot of pizza, as well as cake and ice cream. I had found some vegan marshmallows and was planning on making smores as an activity, but it slipped my mind. I didn't plan any activities this year, so we mostly just hung out, but it was a lot of fun anyway.
I hope you enjoyed this post. Stay tuned for more!
