This Halloween, I decided to dress up as the Morton Salt Girl.

Morton Salt Girl and her 1880s husband

Not just any Morton Salt Girl, but the 1956 version.

The little Morton Salt Umbrella Girl is a registered trademark of Morton Salt, Inc.

I had a pretty easy time putting together most of the costume, except for the yellow dress. I searched and searched for a dress. The one I finally found wasn’t exactly what I wanted, but it worked. Here’s what I used to put together my costume.

A few things I bought:

• $13.32 yellow umbrella from Amazon
• $4.99 yellow dress from Goodwill
• $1.49 white Merona tights from Goodwill (I buy all my tights brand-new in the Goodwill $1.49 bin)
• $8 yellow socks from American Apparel
• $13.12 white Isotoner slippers from Amazon

A few things I had:

• White skirt
• White elastic headband
• A canister of salt
• Fishing line

To make the salt canister, I printed out two copies of the Morton Salt girl logo. (You can download a high-resolution version of the image here. Be sure to use landscape layout when you print the image.) Then, I removed the existing label from my salt canister. I used a hot glue gun to attached the logo to each side of the canister. For a final touch, I hot glued some fishing line to the spout to resemble salt pouring out of the canister.

White Mary Janes were expensive, not to mention that I probably wouldn’t wear them again. Instead I bought some Isotoner slippers and created my own Mary Janes. I took a white elastic headband, cut it in half and sewed each half into a loop. I simply placed the loops around each of my feet and put on the slippers – instant Mary Janes.

My dress needed some volume, so I used an old white eyelet skirt as a crinoline.  It was just the right length to peek out, so I think it worked pretty well.

Overall, the costume was inexpensive and got a good response. I can re-use most of the items, so that’s nice too. We had a great time at the party on Saturday and I am looking forward to dressing up again tomorrow for the trick-or-treaters.