ghostbusters costume: the proton pack

i never thought i'd get it done!

actually, i didn't entirely get it done. the proton pack is not yet a functional backpack; it did however work as a prop last night.

recovering from surgery meant i was too tired and dopey to work on this for the better part of two weeks! yikes. so i had a bit of a race to the finish line yesterday, which left me pooped. was in bed at 8 o'clock! but the kid was happy, and that's the point.

i wasn't able to get the led lights i wanted, so i had to find another way. i also needed some sort of interfacing stuff to give it a bit of body and a bit of padding. and, i had initially imagined knitting i-cord for the various tubes, but there was no time (and i didn't like the idea of soggy wool in the rain) so i thought coloured shoelaces might work as an alternative. so i went to the dollar store in search of inspiration.

lo and behold!

the silver thing? is a windshield sunshade to keep your car cool. just the right sort of lightweight foam to use as padding, and shiny enough to make the reflective red things on the circle part at the bottom of the proton pack (pardon the high-tech language). the skipping rope was a sub for shoelaces - i got three so i could cut a variety of coloured sections out. it was pretty easy to remove the handles at the end at take out the filling to make it easier to work with, and more "tube-like."

then i cut out the four circles from the silver stuff - slightly smaller than the black cover circles - and painted them with red nail polish.

the "danger" label is embroidered felt.

here are a bunch of the bits all assembled together:

and finally stitched up!

for the gun part, which was a little sad-looking as i ran out of time, i took a vaccuum hose my brother-in-law found on garbage night, spray-painted it black, and pulled it through the bottom between the layers of fabric. i had to loop it around to take up the extra length (seemed easier than trying to cut it) and whip stitched it in place.

voila!