I became Puzzle Craze Barbie for Halloween

All right who remembers when i unboxed puzzle barbie a few months ago – and i said this – oh my god, these pants – i want them in my life. I think i need to recreate them. I think i need to dress up as puzzle barbie for halloween who knew that such a statement would then go on to consume an entire week of my life. But yes, yes, i did it. I dressed up as puzzle, crazed barbie for halloween, and let me show you how i did it.

There are three main components to the costume, the box, the outfit and the puzzle. I decided to start with the puzzle, so in photoshop i cut apart a photo of barbie’s puzzle into the different puzzle pieces and i enlarged them to fill up an entire sheet of paper. Well, first, i spent a hundred dollars on new ink cartridges because i used up all of my ink printing dozens of photos of creepy dolls for my other halloween video, but once that was fixed, i printed out all 15 pieces. So i cut all of these straight edges with a craft knife and a ruler, and then i roughly cut out the rest of the shapes. Then i grabbed some cardboard sheets and some paper mod podge.

I brushed on a thin layer and stuck it down, and i made sure to line up the edges with the edge of the board. I let this dry for an hour way down underneath jigsaw puzzles, of course, after that i cut out each shape with scissors and weighed it down again this time under my dad’s book and also a few bricks just to keep them from curling up as they dried Completely all right, it’s time for the moment of truth, i left the giant puzzle pieces being pressed under bricks overnight. So now, let’s take a look: let’s move my dad’s book and oh, my god, they’re flat. Yes, that looks so good [ Music ]! Oh, my god that looks so good look at how cool that is, especially with this lighting effect on the side from where this is like a little curve that you can see that you get this illusion that makes these look curved.

Ah, this is so cool all right. Well, let me take that apart for now, and i actually have a very special something to put them in check that out. Oh my gosh, so just as a reminder here is what barbie’s original backpack looked like and i just didn’t know how to source like neon, yellow plastic like this to make my own. So i went on amazon and i bought this neon green backpack. So, as i said, i bought this backpack on amazon and i don’t know where else in my life i’ll use a transparent neon, green backpack, but you know works great for this costume.

I put the pieces into the front pocket and it is a perfect fit to bring my giant puzzle with me anywhere. I go, which is nowhere because we should all be staying home right now, anyway. The next part of the costume is the barbie box. A few months ago i bought a treadmill and, as soon as i saw the box that it came in, i was like that’s it. That’S my barbie box.

I decided to use contact paper to cover it because i thought that would be cleaner than painting the whole thing. So i did blue contact paper on the inside and then i did pink contact paper on the outside and i sped that up really fast, but it actually took like an entire afternoon after that i cut triangles for the top of the box and i covered those In pink contact paper and i cut a box in half to be the inside box thing and i covered that in blue contact paper, the only thing left was the front shape. So i made a pattern on my computer to get the shape exactly right. I cut it out. I traced it and i cut that out of cardboard.

I started covering it with contact paper and then i realized that i don’t have enough contact paper to cover the whole thing, so that was mistake, number one. So after working on this all day, i’ve ended up with a box that is covered on the inside and the outside. I have these little triangle pieces which will get glued down there, and i was working on this front piece, which is this right here, where it says: puzzle, craze, barbie but um. I don’t have quite enough contact paper to finish it up, so this will have to go on the back burner until the rest of the contact paper gets here, which i just ordered, but in the meantime what i still have to do is to paint this design. I’M going to paint that on the inside of the box and then obviously i still have to make the outfit, but i am exhausted.

Uh crawling around on the floor. Attaching all that contact paper was basically my workout for the day, so i’m gon na call it for the day, and then i have probably two or three more days of work on this. Why do i do this? Why? Why do i give myself these big projects?

I mean i know why it’s because i literally couldn’t live with myself. If i had the idea and then didn’t actually do it. The next day i moved on to the printing portion of this project and there was a whole lot of printing r.i.p, my very expensive new ink cartridges.

Then the cutting began, and even though this shot is totally off camera trust me. It’S happening [, Music, ], but before i could attach the printouts to the box, i had a lot of painting to do so. I drew the tree with a pencil and then i did a base coat with white paint. Again, i’m speeding up all of the footage, but trust me this took another full day to paint, but it was actually really fun it felt like i was painting sets for a school play also. I was really close to running out of green paint.

That’S why i didn’t do two coats, even though it’s a little splotchy. You know for this whole project, it’s a little rough, but we’re just working with what we have [ Music ]. So it’s just about the end of day. I don’t know three. Maybe i look like absolute garbage, but i’m currently sitting inside the barbie box after having painted the whole thing this afternoon, painting is not one of my strongest suits, but i think it came out.

Okay, i have one more cloud to paint today and then i think i’ll be done. For the day. My whole body hurts i’ve been at such weird angles, trying to paint like above my head and over corners and yeah. I think it’s turning out um really cute though i mean, i hope so, because i’m spending like an entire week on this all right, we’re. Finally, on the home stretch, i printed out these butterflies and apples and glued them in place following the design on the box.

I glued down all of the letters onto the triangles and i changed it from saying walmart to saying youtube, because we don’t need to be promoting walmart here, [, Music ]. So let me show you a little trick. Anything! That’S just plain white! I actually printed on my laser printer backwards.

That’S because i can just cut it out and then, when i flip it over, it is a solid white shape without seeing any of the lines we just cut. So obviously i decided to change barbie to karen, because that’s me and i did everything i could, while waiting for the rest of the contact paper to get here. But in the meantime i realized i made a second mistake. I made the second tree way too short. So i actually had to paint over it to extend it down.

I also had to paint grass on this inside box and glue on the letters, so that was another full night of work. [, Music ]. You guys look what just came in the mail. Another thing of contact paper, which means that i can finally finish the box. Finally, i was able to finish the front part of the box.

I covered it with contact paper and then i glued down all of the designs and yes, i probably could have used sticker paper or rubber cement or something that’s a little cleaner than hot glue. But hot glue is fast and it’s what i had so we’re going with it once the front was fully glued. I cut these little cardboard hinges to attach it [ Music ]. I also put them on the other side, but on that side i taped on magnets. So that it could open and close like a door – and i wouldn’t have to step over it every time that i got in and out and with that that’s the box all finished, oh, my god, i can’t believe the box is done and i can fit inside.

I just took a test photo so now. The next thing to do is to do the outfit, and i know that’s the part that all of you were most excited about. Is the puzzle pants, so you know we’ll see what happens. Hopefully they turn out well now that i spent so long on this. Oh halloween, just giving myself nervous breakdowns every year, it’s tradition, all right, guys we’re almost done.

Moving on to the outfit, i bought a pink shirt and i had to do quite a few alterations. So i pulled out my sewing machine and i brought up the hem. I also lowered the neckline i pinned and sewed some blue ribbon stripes to the front, and i added lighter blue ribbon around the arms and the waist to finish it off. I cut a collar out of yellow felt and i sewed that on as well and look i’m not great at sewing. I know that this isn’t perfect, but there were a lot of things that i was making.

So at some point you just have to say that it is good enough. So finally, the very last thing is the puzzle pants the star of the show. Of course i left them until last, so i mean they had to work. I had no other choice. Originally i bought these green pants, but they were too big.

They kind of looked like a diaper, i kind of felt like miranda sings. So instead i ordered a second pair of pants and these were so much more comfortable to make the puzzle pieces. I printed out a template of three different piece shapes and i traced, and i cut them out of felt once i had all of the felt shapes cut out. I could just stack two colors cut a random shape and then swap them and continue that until i had a colorful puzzle piece, then i hot glued them onto the pants making sure to get the glue all the way up to the edges so that when the Pants stretched the pieces wouldn’t stretch apart, and i just continued that all over the entirety of the pants. Yes, this took a while, and yes, there are lots of different ways that i could have done it, but again, i’m working with what i had.

One worry that i had was that there would be so much hot glue that i would lose the stretch in the pants and i wouldn’t be able to put them on so i kept periodically putting them on as i went, and luckily that didn’t happen. I was still able to get them on. It was such a relief when i finished them and they still fit and they’re actually really comfortable. So for one very final touch: barbie wears hot pink boots and i would have loved to buy these hot, pink doc martens. But you guys, i already spent so much money on this project that instead i decided to wear these white boots that i already had and i just replaced the laces with pink string.

So, finally, after like a week and a half of work, the costume is complete and you guys it looks so good. I am 100 living my life size, fantasy, i’m hustle craze, karen you’re, my special friend all right. You won’t get that unless you’ve seen the movie, but anyway did anyone notice that both of my halloween videos this year had to do with dolls. I swear. I did not plan that anyway, i’ll just be here, doing my puzzle hanging out with puzzle, craze, barbie and living my best puzzle life.

So thank you for coming along with me on this journey of turning myself into puzzle, craze barbie. No, i’m sorry puzzle craze! Karen! I didn’t want to wear a blonde wig. I really hate wigs anyway.

This ended up being a much bigger project than i anticipated, but you know i mean now. I have a life-size barbie box to put somewhere in my apartment. I might not have thought this. All the way through, where am i gon na – put it so i’d love to know in a comment if you’re going to be dressing up for halloween this year, obviously it not to go out to a party, but you know just for fun. If you need any ideas, i obviously always go all out with my halloween costume last year i did lady gaga.

I’Ve also done lizzie, mcguire and teen witch and from justin to kelly you might be seeing a theme here. What can i say? I am a child of the early 2000s and also bad 80s movies. I actually have tutorials for all of those over on my old diy youtube channel. So if you want more karen, you can head over there i’ll have links to all of those right down below.

In the description, if you’re just finding me through the puzzle channel, i have 10 years of diy content for you to catch up on so have fun with that. So, okay, your code word for the comments, so that i know that you watch the entire video will be puzzle craze. I guess it’s a code phrase this time. So after all of this, i kind of just need a minute to take a break. So my next video will be on the 13th i’ll, be back with a jigsaw, puzzle, holiday, gift guide, it’s going to be so fun.

I have stacks of puzzles literally just off frame that i’ve been collecting for that video, so stay tuned and then, after that, i’ll be back to my normal sunday. Videos happy halloween, and i think i’m just gon na go take a walk around my neighborhood, because i want somebody to see my outfit