My DIY Fly Costume to Complement My I'm Speaking Fly Necklace
Stacey Bowers
Good morning to Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and the fly on the Mike Pence’s head. My I’m Speaking Fly Necklace commemorates the epic Vice Presidential Debate that gave us The Fly.
There’s not a whole lot to laugh about right now in America, but I think we can agree that the fly on Mike Pence was the kind of comedy we were all needing in our lives.
I made this “I’m Speaking” Fly Necklace the morning after to embody both heroes of the Vice President debate: Senator Kamala Harris and the fly on Mike Pence’s head. I spent the next 4 weeks up to my hairline in brass flies.
This very unofficial debate commemoration necklace features a brass flay charm alongside a stamped brass circle that reads I’M SPEAKING. Be like Kamala Harris. Don’t let any man talk over you. Tell them to buzz right off. The chain is 18 inches and 14K gold-filled. This necklace is also available in silver with an aluminum stamped circle, sterling chain and brass fly (all fly charms are brass and therefore gold-colored).
The fly consumed my life so much that I became it on Halloween. Check out my DIY fly costume below.
Buzz off. My homemade fly costume to honor the fly that landed on Mike Pence’s head during the debate. Photo by Becca Bona.
I started with basic black jeans, black boots and a long-sleeved black shirt. Using about a yard of fuzzy black fabric from a craft store, I cut a pair of sleeves that I safety-pinned around the sleeves of my shirt. I cut a baggy hood from the fuzzy fabric and I used the leftover fuzzy fabric to cut a long strip for a scarf. For the eyes, I cut a sphere of floral foam in half, set each half on a paper plate and painted them both several times with red glitter glue. When they were dry, I used some of my lapel pins that were damaged and hot glued them onto the flat side of the sphere halves, then stuck them onto the hood I made. I took two black pipe cleaners and wrapped them around a black headband to make the antennae. For the wings, I took two wire clothes hangers apart and shaped them into teardrops, then I twisted them together and used duct tape to secure them. I cut the legs off a pair of white pantyhose and slid them over the wire frames, tying them at the ends and securing them with more tape. Then I drew the veins onto the pantyhose using a Sharpie and tied them onto my shoulders using two long ribbons. The final touch was sticking a card stock cutout of Pence’s stink head onto a wooden dowel.
Good morning to Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and the fly on the Mike Pence’s head. My I’m Speaking Fly Necklace commemorates the epic Vice Presidential Debate that gave us The Fly.