Dia de los Muertos/Day of the Dead- Celebrations and Sugar Skulls Part 1

When I was in college at Arizona State, I was introduced to the Dia de los Muertos/Day of the Dead tradition in a Chicana/o Studies class. One of our projects was to make little altars out of matchboxes. We also had to attend the Day of the Dead exhibit in the Anthropology musuem on campus. It was one of the best classes I ever took. It was a real introduction to a culture- my own culture- that I had never really been aware of before. I ended up adding on Chicana/o Studies as my double major because I enjoyed the class so much.

I credit this class as being the beginning of my love of all that is DOD. In a later year at ASU I participated in the same exhibit at the on-campus museum by entering a paper collage/mosaic piece. SO! I obviously was very much inspired :-) I especially love sugar skulls, and I have them decorating lots of spaces in my apartment. This year we attended the Day of the Dead event at the Hollywood Forever cemetery in LA and it was SO MUCH more than I expected it to be! We painted our faces - well half of our faces - for this event and for the HARD Day of the Dead event (long story short, the event was crazy disorganized, music was good but we are never going to a HARD event again.) I can't believe I'd never painted my face before! It was a lot of fun. 

And now... our badass sugar skull faces!! :-D

Prepping for the evening

I used Tulip face paints and I LOVED them. I bought an assorted pack from Michael's as well as a larger sized white and black. They're super easy to use, and I used make-up sponges to apply them. They are activated by water so I just wet my sponges or brushes and swirled them around in the paint. They washed off really easily with water and just a touch of soap.

Liz starting to look like an awesome calavera

Liz just bought some regular Halloween face paint (the kind they sell at Target, Wal-Mart, etc.) but I decided to spend a bit more money on the Tulip paints, because my face tends to be more sensitive, and I didn't want to risk breaking out or getting a rash.

These are our serious faces... heehee!

Surprise photo attack in the car!

And these are our happy faces!

And BF with his half mustache. lol

Isn't his shirt cool?? It's totes mine. :-P He couldn't find his Super Mario skull face shirt.

And me- a sleepy sugar skull

So I thought my face paint was pretty cool the first night, but I liked it even better the second time around

This blue paint was really bright and awesome looking, but it actually stained by face a bit when I tried to wash it off at the end of the night. By the time I got up in the morning and splashed my face with some water, it had all rubbed off.

My leggings were suh-weeeet! Clearance at H&M!

I found lots of photos online that I used for guidance while painting my face. Check out my Pinterest board, Sugar Skulls, for some great photos.

Part 2 of this post coming mañana with more details on the DOD events we attended this year! :-)