World Book Day - Any Suggestions for making a character costume?
 

Given the fact that it is World Book Day next week our local school are asking children to dress up like their favourite character from any well know book. The catch is that the costume is not to be shop bought but to be made or used from clothes or material at home.

Please please help me with this one. My little girl is nine and my son is 7. Any suggestions or help would be most welcome.

Kind regards and thank you for reading.

Hi Mumof3
My nine year old sons school did the same last year and I just dressed him in an old style waistcoat, white shirt and old trousers. I dyed his hair orange with food colouring, gave him little freckles with a brown marker, got a narrow lenght of white plastic piping and sunglasses and he went as a young Louie Braille.
If you Google Louie Braille, you will see the photo of him as a boy when he first started.
My son had his photo taken like that for our local bookshop

some ideas
 

Dorothy from Wizard of Oz might be easy to do
White blouse, blue dress/skirt, pigtails, basket, white socks and red shoes complete the costume. See http://images.ozcostumes.com/child-dorothy-costume.jpg

Harry Potter - white shirt, tie, black cloak, and glasses. http://blog.beliefnet.com/pontificat...y%20Potter.jpg

Tin Man from Wizard of Oz - lots and lots of tin foil! http://www.ozcostumes.com/child-tin-man-costume.html

Tracey Beaker from the Jacqueline Wilson stories - Black curly wig, striped rugby shirt, red trousers
http://images.tvnz.co.nz/tvnz_images...y_beaker_d.jpg

Elmer the elephant - lots of different coloured patches sewn together! http://www.beginningtoinquire.ecsd.net/Elmer.jpg

Little Red Riding Hood http://www.menalto.com/gallery/d/413...iding+Hood.JPG

The Cat in the Hat by Dr Seuss http://www.afn.org/~afn15301/pics/catnhat2.gif

Thanks Ireneo and Mrsl. You have both given me food for thought. Will try tomorrow and see from all the suggestion what I can put together. Many thanks again. Regards.

Hi I have to say I have tried to replicate the suggestions that I have been given but unfortunately I dont seem to have whats needed ie. waitcoat... etc etc.. does anybody have any ideas that are foolproof because I really am not that creative... pls help....

OMG my 9 year old daughter has just come home from school and informed me that she has to dress up as a fairy-tale character for world book day and to cap it all it absolutely, definitely must be home made even though I have plenty of dress up clothes nothing would be home made.

Can anybody please help me with ideas for this one????


Please please please and thank you.

Regards.

costume
 

what about a white pyjamas with black marker writing all over it .....all the different book titles.....go as a library!!!!

Cinderella
 

How about Cinderella for you daughter? normal dress with off cuts of different materials tacked on, that way you still have the original dress. If you don't have different bits of material about, get some white cotton and food dye, not permanant, but then neither is world book day.
Good luck

If your daughter is not a girlie girl and doesnt mind being a boy character, She could wear a white shortsleeve shirt with a ribbon tied in a bow around her neck, a pair of dugarees cut into shorts, gloves, hat and then straighten out four wire coat hangers, bend the ends around her wrists and join them all together high up over her head and tape them to 2 sticks in an x shape, two rosey red cheeks and you have a pinocchio puppet. If that description makes sense.
You could then paint or wrap wool around the wires to make them look like string.
She can even wear tights, Im sure they will be needed
You might have to join two hangers together to make sure its high enough over her head to let her move around normally.
Ps: lI should have said, loop one hanger around each wrist and the other two hangers going down the back and tied around the belt holes on her dungarees

Or The Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland. Two rectangles cut from a white sheet from her neck to half way down her shin. sew them together, leaving holes for her head and arms, again, a coat hanger from either side of her neck out to just past her shoulders, cut lots of hearts from red material to stick all over her and a crown on her head

Great stuff Ireneo, I will go for the queen of heart, seems the simplist option for me and i am not too handy with this type of thing, but that does sound good.

thanks for that

Thanks to everybody who has replied to this. I really appreciate it and need to get working on it soon...

Now that I am all organised for this, I would like to be super-organised for next year (because this year nearly killed me.... lol.... spent 2 days making the Queen of Hearts idea) yes I am that bad creative wise and kneedle wise.... another lol....

Just an idea if anybody is handy with material and thread, would you be willing, in advance of course, to make up costumes from characters from books.

I do know that we can buy these and I have lots (from Halloween) but when a school is looking for home-made things, I, as a parent, who is not very creative, find it very hard and extremely stressful. And when we have them we could pass them around to whoever needs them.... Would be a great re-cycling idea...

Just an idea and any thoughts would be most welcome.

kind regard.s

Hi
Great idea. I love making costumes. I never buy them, You cant beat homemade original ideas for all occasions. Count me in. The only one I have a photo of at the moment is my 9yr old son at last years Halloween Ball as the invisible man. It didnt cost one cent. I am a true believer in coat hangers.
With coat hangers, any costume is possible.
Count me in

Good on you Ireneo, I am hopeless mind you my little girl is quite happy with her costome, will try take a photo when she comes home from school...

Here are some of the costumes I made for my son and what they cost me:

Phantom of the opera -€3 (black hairspray)
Special Branch - €1 (elastic bands)
Zombie with tyre track - Not a cent
Invisible man - Not a cent

He won 1st place in competitions in each of these costumes

HI my idea would be WALLEE.. the robot who tried to save earth... either a large cardboard box or a black bin bag and glue or attach all bits of recycled rubbish to it... cereal boxes, toilet rolls, juice bottles school milk bottles, crisp packets biscuit wrappers, im trying to think of what else wallee saved in the movie ... a plant...


hope this helps...



IRENEO>>>>. did the food dye work???? did it not stain his face ??? did it wash out easily??? reason i ask is that we are about to do a mad hair day ... and i need inspiration or wigs as i cant do hair except pony tails....



good luck

Summersun

Hi Summersun
Yes the food colouring washes straight out in one wash. I do his hair green every year for his schools St Patricks day party too. If you rub vaseline along your hairline and ears and back of your neck, then when the dye is in, it wipes off with the vaseline but it washes off easy anyway

Wow Ireneo, you really do have talent there. As I said we went for the Queen of Heart and it didnt cost a cent. I had an old white tablecloth which I cut to size. I didnt have any red material for the hearts so we use white paper and cut out large and small hearts. We had a great afternoon painting them all, took a couple of coats to make it a deep red but it was good fun.

The next day when they were dry we sewed the paper love hearts on, bit time consuming but still good fun as my little one did some and I did some.

All in all it was great fun making it and she looked great. But alas she didnt win, although personally I thought she should have, because a boy in her class won and it was just bits of all bought costumes put together to make a new one.

This really maddened me although I said nothing to my little one but I felt that they had stated over and over that it should be hand made.

This has put me off for next year and think I will just let her wear one from her "Dress Up" drawer.

Oh by the way, I have noticed that each year, the children of the parents who are on the parents committee always win........ do that say something about our school..... I think so......

Thats awful! And do they not realise that other parents are far from stupid and can see whats happening every year. Its very annoying! It happens a lot in other places too.
But Im glad your daughter was happy with her costume and enjoyed helping to make it. Myself and Jacob love doing them too and its great to work on them together.
He hasnt said what he wants to be this Halloween surprisingly. He usually says around now, what hes thinking of. Its great because it gives me a chance to get ideas together. Of all the costumes in the photos, The invisible man was the quickest and easiest to make. It took an hour and not a cent.
They always have a King and Queen of the ball
He won "King of the ball" It was so funny when the judge tried to put the crown on his head as you can imagine.

Irene call me stupid bu how did you do the invisible man....

I got my husbands shirt. I opened out two wire coat hangers. I tied one around under the collar and folded the collar back down over it and sewed collar down to the shirt to keep wire in place. I left the rest of the hanger standing up straight at the back of the collar. I then looped the top of the wire like a halo and placed a baseball cap onto the halo and sew them together too. I got a really fine piece of wire and wrapped it around the middle of the glasses and brought it up to wrap it around the front of the wire inside the cap and sewed the parts that go behind your ears to the sides of the cap
I used the other hanger to place inside the shirt, going across under the neck and out to each shoulder. I got some foam underlay, used for wooden floors and rolled it up like a sausage and it went all across the top from shoulder to shoulder. I taped it to the hanger already placed there. I cut out a hole up through the underlay so it would rest neatly and comfortably on his head and that kept the top part up over his head.
I then just cut two eyeholes in the chest of the shirt.
It was so comfortable, it sat on his head like a hat, it was as light as a feather and he didnt want to take it off that night, even at bedtime!!!!

Im not very good at giving instructions, I hope all that made sense.
ps. I almost forgot, I sewed black material inside the neck to make it look like a hole.

invisible man
 

Genius ireneo! well done

Thank you Mrsl.
I think homemade costumes are hard to beat and I really enjoy the challenge.

Our local Gaa had a fancydress party last summer and he wore a suit and I got a load of old different wheels and tied them all over him and he went as "The Gaa Spokesperson ". I have to start getting ideas for this summer now. Anybody reading this got any ideas?????????????
I might just put overalls on him and give him a hammer and a small stake and send him as "The minister of de`fence"