Author Archives: runsilly

[facebook] Putting together a running costume presents challenges beyond just looking good. It has to FEEL good too, plus hold together over many miles. And the key to feeling good while looking good is to start with good base pieces. For those of us who sew, the challenge of getting the base pieces right involves […]

[facebook] When I saw the movie Guardians of the Galaxy, I fell in love with Groot. His bark-covered body is the classic “tough exterior with a heart of gold.” Or in his case, bark outside and flowers and sparks inside. I knew I wanted to make a Groot costume, but where to start? I found my starting […]

I realized the other day that my last several costumes have all involved running in makeup. So I thought I would do a quick post about what I’ve learned along the way. When I talk about running in makeup, I’m talking face and body paint. If you want a great rundown on running in beauty […]

[facebook] My first thought for costumes when I heard the theme for Portland’s 2014 Run Like Hell was “Under the Sea,” was to do Marlin and Dory from Finding Nemo. But after weeks of looking at examples, I just couldn’t get started. I realized the problem was not with the difficulty of making fish costumes […]

[facebook] When runDisney opened registration for their new Avengers-themed races, my fingers were flying over the keyboard to get registered. Once I managed to snag spots for my husband and I, it was time to pick characters for our costumes. With the whole Marvel Universe to choose from, it wasn’t easy. I wanted something a […]

[facebook] Not everyone would be excited to run in a fur costume in summer. But thankfully, there was a volunteer silly enough to join our Up-themed group in the Portland Starlight Run (Maryalicia, you are a brave woman). Because really, what would an Up group be without everyone’s favorite talking dog, Dug? This post will […]

[facebook] This project got started when my husband and I signed up for an Easter-themed race. Since I knew there would be lots of bunny costumes, I decided to go with Mad Hatter and White Rabbit outfits. I looked through all the available Mad Hatter hats, and they just weren’t mad enough for me, I […]

[facebook] Many of you will have heard by now of how SELF Magazine chose to ridicule a cancer patient because she was running a marathon in a tutu. It appears to be a case of poor journalism backed by a “mean girls” attitude. But is there more to this attitude than just a distain for […]

[facebook] I’ve been having a great time with my new favorite material, Wonderflex! It is a thermoplastic sheet that you can cut with scissors and then heat and mold into shapes. When heated, it becomes sticky so you can stick it to itself or other materials. I’ll give you a demo on how I made […]

[facebook] There are a lot of great Russell costume tutorials out there already, so I’ll point you at a couple that I used and pass on some shortcuts of my own. The hardest part of Russell for me was getting the colors of the shirt and hat right. I must have purchased and returned about […]

[facebook] In this final post about building my Kevin costume, I will go into how I made the body. While Kevin’s body looks elaborate, it was more time-consuming than difficult to make. The two biggest challenges were how to make it cool enough to run in, and how to get the effect of feathers without […]

[facebook] Before I describe how I made Kevin’s head, I want to backtrack a little and talk about proportions. In planning Kevin, I took a picture of the “real” Kevin and divided it out as shown above. That gave me rough proportions for how big the head should be in relation to the body and […]