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It was a challenge this year coming up with a costume for my son with mask requirements at school. Since we are avid fans of The Nightmare Before Christmas he mentioned Jack Skellington and I thought of the perfect implementation of his mask.

I bought a simple black long sleeve t-shirt and a pair of pants from Old Navy. Since I didn’t want to permanently ruin the shirt I was trying to think of ways to come up with ways to put white stripes on with out using paint or anything I couldn’t remove. Then I came across some medical tape I had lying around! AH HA!

I started with the V which I guess would technically be the shirt beneath the jacket and just layer strips down like so.

The cool part was that all the overlapping of the tape created this sketchy sort of “Tim Burton-y” kind of look. It was a happy accident that worked out in my favor!

Next I started with the stripes of the tux. I didn’t really cut them all exactly to length. Sometimes I had to add a piece or two but it only added to it’s character in my opinion.

The great thing about this particular medical tape is that it was flexible and easy to remove with out any residue. As for the lapel, which is the folded part of the tux jacket, I placed the strips horizontal and tried to cut the edge to create the illusion of a real lapel.

I wasn’t happy with how transparent the under shirt part looked so I used some white acrylic paint on top to make it stand out. I also added a button with more medical tape and paint. All the details are what make it so cool!

Next I used a sheet of black felt to make the cat bow tie and painted it with white acrylic paint.

I secured it to the shirt with safety pins. I also painted my son’s face and hands with some face paint. Check out this post if you want to complete the costume by making a DIY Jack Skellington Face Mask.

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