Mardi Gras Craft

To help me keep good on my promise to regularly update this blog, an employee who recently relocated to New Orleans is going to help me out. Without further adieu:

People down in New Orleans take Mardi Gras very seriously. Not only are all shops and offices closed on Mardi Gras, but also on the preceding Monday and the Friday. Costumes are also taken very seriously. How serious? Well, the Mardi Gras Indians spend the whole year gluing millions of beads to make up complex designs. They actually reuse all the beads and materials from their suit last year. Each suit weighs around 150 lbs. There are 43 official tribes, all of which have their own practice spaces, but they all come together at sunrise of Fat Tuesday. More on this later.

Then of course there are all the Krewe's that each hold their parade. While the big parades are in the days leading up to Mardi Gras, the first Krewe with a big parade is over two weeks prior to Fat Tuesday.

Even those residents not part of a Krewe or a Tribe take costumes seriously. When a friend of mine was making plans to meet up with a friend at a parade, when they found out he didn't have a costume they refused to be seen with him!

My dad was down to help me with the move, and he wanted help getting a costume together. I took my inspiration from traditional costumes made in Eunice, a small town in Cajun Country I visited last Spring. In Eunice they celebrate Mardi Gras by getting dressed up and chasing a chicken on horses, and then making a big stew for the town.

We started with a trip to used clothing stores, and got a pair of ugly wool pants, a bright striped polo shirt, and some scrap fabric. Then we headed to a craft store and bought some ribbon and plastic mask. Total cost of supplies? Just a little over $8. A good costume does not need to cost a bundle.

Basically it came down to a hot glue gun, and tearing up lots of strips of material. I decided to use the seams for direction.



In the end it was not as complex as the costumes from Eunice, but my dad got a lot of complements, lots of people were taking his picture, and out of all of us he got the most goodies being handed out.

And here's a picture of my dad outside of the ball and inside:

All and all a good start to the Carnival season.