As far as I know, the concept of Summerween gained momentum when the cartoon Gravity Falls did an episode about it but there have been Summerween parties and celebrations before that. The idea is pretty simple. It's a Summer Halloween Party because dressing up one time a year just isn't enough.
This year, our friend Adam celebrated the 10 year anniversary since the very first Summerween party he threw. The party is a big deal and gets a ton of attendance from people. We carve watermelons instead of pumpkins, make all the inside fruit into trash punch, and have a celebratory apple bobbing contest.
The house gets packed full of people from all over the place and usually, I end up seeing way too many people from high school. There's beer and alcohol everywhere and sometimes people even bring snacks. You guard your pack of beer close because it will get taken if you leave it in the fridge.
Because Rony and I collect Halloween decor, most of the decorations came from us.
Last year me and Rony went as summer goths, inspired by that episode of Portlandia with Danzig from the Misfits. This year was less weird but we managed to pull off a pretty cool costume. Rony was a Xenomorph and I was Ripley. His costume took the longest.
We got a black morph suit from Amazon that ended up being a size too small. So we left the head part off. Next we got some black tubing from Home Depot for the tail and weird shoulder pieces, black flip flops so Rony would walk around without cutting his feet, Dollar tree sunglasses, and a party blower we painted black for the second mouth.
His teeth and mouth was a white dust mask we painted black and cut the shape of the mouth into. This let him breathe and also meant he could have the party blower pop out. I painted the teeth onto the mask and then added hot glue to give them dimension and to make the spit drips. The original movie used KY Jelly and I wasn't about to do that.
His head was the most complicated part. The helmet is made out of giant plastic pickle juice jugs. No joking. Our house and car and everything smells like pickle juice. We had to heat it up to cut it in half and then ended up having to buy a second jug just to make it long enough. We got a lot of weird looks and now our fridge is filled with pickle juice in various containers.
The helmet is held on with a headband and the two pieces stuck together with hot flue, Gorilla Glue, and duct tape. I then spray painted all of it black, sealed it, and gloss varnished it to make it look glossy. To make the bulbous backpart, it's a purple balloon that was suppose to be black and so we covered it up with pantyhose stockings. It's also held in with duct tape. We painted any exposed parts of his face with water activated body paints and then he was all done!
You've never seen Rony as excited and happy as when he was a Xenomorph. He danced around everywhere and was outgoing and pumped up. It was hilarious.
My outfit was a lot simpler. I ordered gray men's coveralls and rolled up the arms and legs because I'm a shorty. Added a white shirt and spray painted the largest dollar store toy gun I could find. My hair is close to Ripley's when it's curly so I didn't have to do anything and just grabbed Rony's Chestburster plush.
Ta da, Alien costumes!
We had a ton of fun like always. I didn't take many pictures because, you know, drunk people and it was getting crowded. There was a Batgirl and Steven Universe and Calvin and Hobbs plus your usual ghost. Rony tried to do apple bobbing with his outfit, but his head proved troublesome.
I actually didn't drink. Just wasn't feeling it but that may be why I felt like going to bed at like 1am. Maybe I'm just getting old but I can rarely stay up super late anymore.
This Summerween was probably our last one if we stay on track to move in May. Little things like these are things we're gonna miss but it was great to go out with a bang at least.
Have you ever celebrated Summerween?
-Sam <3