Are you stuck for a Halloween costume idea? Perhaps I can solve your dilemma. Slather yourself in peanut butter, slap a piece of foam on your belly and back, and go as a sandwich.
Aren’t I helpful?
For real help, visit The Foam Source in Lynnwood. They’ve got material for making costumes, from cheese heads to Gumby. Owner Anne Fleck has been helping partygoers for 16 years.
"You never know what folks will come up with," Fleck said. "One group of gals went as the California Raisins."
That was years ago, when dancing fruit were popular. This year, cartoon creature SpongeBob SquarePants should be a popular costume. Become the sponge guy by painting a square of foam with bright yellow color.
So what is foam?
According to the Polyurethane Foam Association in Tennessee, "flexible polyurethane foam is a chemically complex polymeric product having a broad range of load bearing capability and resiliency."
At The Foam Source at 17602 Highway 99, I was compelled to squeeze all the different types and shapes. Fleck said she sells foam that won’t absorb water to pack inside kayaks. Seamstresses Mara Wiltshire and Diane Manzanares keep busy making cushions for kitchen booths, boat interiors and dining room chairs. Wedges are sold to prop up pillows for those with sleeping disorders. Prop a broken leg on a piece of foam. Wrap a cup and saucer in foam to ship to Florida.
For Halloween, you might get an idea just by visiting the shop. Find foam in all shapes and sizes, soft to firm, colored or plain, thick or thin. One gentlemen wrapped himself in foam and painted the outside like a newspaper. Then there was the blue Viagra pill costume. And who wouldn’t want to be a prickly foam cactus?
Year around, buy foam to refill a beanbag chair or roll up foam to use under a sleeping bag. The day I was at the shop, Cher Ross picked through a box of free pieces of foam. The Edmonds School District music teacher said she used foam to cushion shoulders for violin and viola students.
She cuts oddball pieces to the right shape.
We talked under a black foam spider hanging from a rafter. I tested out a mattress cover made from a squishy foam material that was totally comfortable. Fleck said a $4,000 pillow-top mattress can be recreated using $250 worth of foam.
"People say how can you make money selling foam?" Fleck said. "We sell all kinds of stuff."
Workers at Fluke Corp. and Tramco buy foam to line their tool boxes, Fleck said. Scraps are purchased to fill stuffed animals. Workers who install tile roofs may buy foam to use as knee pads.
Old foam is picked up from the shop and used to make carpet pad.
Then again, if you aren’t thinking foam, next door to the shop is Encore Consignments. That store featured costumes for a jester, a clown, an angel, a devil, Peter Pan, a skunk and a cow. If you don’t want a store-bought outfit, stuff foam under a leotard for Superman muscles. Get started on your Seahawk headgear to wear at the Super Bowl. Pick a Fruit of the Loom fruit for your Oct. 31 attire.
Skaters buy foam to cushion their bottoms when they fall at the ice rink. One store customer bought foam to pad the oil wrestling pit at a strip club.
You never know where foam will find a home.
Columnist Kristi O’Harran: 425-339-3451 or oharran@heraldnet.com
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