Whenever I’ve got an occasion that requires a bit of dressing up I feel more or less legally obligated to make something myself rather than buy costumes or accessories. This is partly motivated by the fact that I don’t have money to spare, but mainly motivated by the fact I feel I should be creative and actually make something.

Recently, I went to an incredible immersive theatre performance of Venice Preserv’d, and in order to attend a little craft work was needed! You were encouraged to dress up for the performance, and also create a flag or a mask from a printable template.

The flag was simple – printed, glued to a skewer, and lined with Washi tape.

The accessories were trickier – my theme was ‘devil’ and it was a bit cold to wear the red outfit I had originally planned. These were the bits I had at my disposal for accessories.

I decided to see if I could do a cool hair slide with a…. Satan? theme. I twisted some wire into a pitchfork and glued it to a wooden hair slide I had made out of kirby grips, glue, and a wooden canvas corner.

Once I added some paint it was clear things were not working out.

With time running out, I grabbed my trusty Badge – It maker, which I bought on offer from Boots (I know, odd) and got a heck of a lot of points for. I previously used it to make badges for the immersive theatre club I belong to (The Barnardos Immersive Theatre Club, which has a most unfortunate acronym.) On that occasion, I got my first badge jammed in the machine and couldn’t get it out for over 20 minutes. Ages 5 and up. Since then, my skills have improved.

I then sketched out some devils on paper using watercolour and pencil, and did a quote from The Merchant of Venice because I thought that was the play we were seeing – WRONG.

Then I simply cut out the circles, and popped them into the trusty badge-it and VOILA! Instant devil accessories.

You can have a look at some other homemade costume bits here, and come chat to me on twitter @makingthemarrow