Book Week ideas

The next few weeks will see schools participating in 'Book Week' and boy havnt the superstores caught on!  I must admit that in previous years (having been given plenty of notice) I have been set some challenges!

Last year my eldest wanted to be Sophie from Roald Dahl's BFG. So more inspired by the cartoon (I'm afraid) I set out trawling ebay for fleecy yellow blankets. I found a large one on ebay for a couple of pounds and ordered some cheap Harry Potter glasses too! When the fleece arrived it was perfect so I folded it in half, cut out a hole big enough for my daughters head to fit through (in the folded end) and stitched together the sides with huge stitches using black wool. I bought a cheap pair of white pumps from Primark and the look was created.

The previous year she wanted to be Aslan from the lion the witch and the wardrobe. So again I ploughed through ebay looking for low priced fake fur guillets. I found one for a good price and won the bid. Once I got it I unpicked the fur material from the lining (I could have just bought a metre of material, but it would have been very expensive and was not as good quality). I then proceeded to stitch the fur into a hood shape. I am not the best seamstress and I don't own a sewing machine, so this was all done by hand. I also bought (again from ebay) a cheap yellow tracksuit. I attached a lion mask to the front of the 'Lions Main' that I had made so it could be slipped on over the head. Using left over pieces of fur and sheering elastic I made some slip on furry hands and feet. To produce a book week aslan.

 

 

Although not fancy dress hire standard the results pleased my daughter and she was very put out by the fact that the whole school thought she was Simba from the lion King, but I was just pleased it was recognisable as a lion.

 

 

This year I have the 2 girls in school so both have to dress up. The youngest school gave plenty of notice and was very specific on the theme of Monkeys, so brown trousers, tee shirt and boots and I bought a monkey tail and ears. Very happy little Rona.

 

However, the junior school was not so organised and have given us less than a week to find 'A character from their favourite book'. Isla has just finished reading the Hobbit and wanted to be FILI the dwarf (not, Bilbo or Gandalf- but a very specific dwarf!!!!!). I trawled and trawled the internet.

 

Looking at pictures she needed a long leather coat and chain mail!!!!

 very Nice ;)

 

 

She doesn't like to make my life easy. I found a Bilbo costume

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rubies-Bilbo-Baggins-Costume/dp/B00AAB7L1K

 

This costume comes up quite big. My daughter is 8years old and the 7-8 fit her very well. However we now have the dilemma of foot wear! She did not want to wear shoes as Hobbits quite clearly 'DO NOT WEAR SHOES'. It did not matter what I said to her she needed Hobbit Feet. I refused. I had already forked out more money than intended on a costume to wear on one day (luckily I have another child who will probably wear it of a book week when she is older and my girls LOVE dressing up so It well be used). A solution was at hand. Luckily the pumps I had bought the previous year for the Sophie outfit had been too big and still fit. So I put 3 teabags into a large bowl and added boiling water. I allowed this to sit for 10 minutes then removed the teabags and added the shoes. I left these to soak in the tea for another 15 minutes and took them out. The result was a flesh coloured shoe. I placed these on greaseproof paper and put then beside the radiator to dry. Once dry I used a pen to draw on toes and nails and a light brown pen to add detail. I then used a dark brown felt tip to add 'Hairs' to the shoe and there you have a sensible pair of Hobbit feet for a day in school;

 

I do love seeing some of the creative ideas that some of the mums have during book week. For example one little girl had come to school as the peach from James and the Giant Peach. She had a large piece of peachy coloured paper over her like a sandwich board. It was cut into a circle and it had pompom insects attached to it. A fab inexpensive costume which clearly showed time spent sat at a table with the child probably discussing the book and the basic anatomy of the different insects. Kind of put me and my shop bought Hobbit out fit to shame!

Busy, Busy, Busy

I havnt been on here for so long, I almost forgot about it!
But hopefully I am back with more silly antics and a little bit of crafting too.

I have been very busy making cards and scrapbooking. The girls made their own valentines cards to send to unsuspecting boys at school (growing up too fast).

I have been making cards for the flurry of birthdays I have in January and February. Here are a few examples;

These cards were made for my nieces. I used a glue gun to fix the crayons to the card and then used a heat gun to gently melt the crayons and let the wax run.

IDEA: My children have lots and lots of broken bits of crayons in the bottom of their pencil box. Why not recycle these. Another good idea you could use is to melt the crayons in a small aluminium tray  (bend the edge of the tray to make a spout before heating). Pour the liquid wax into silicon moulds (heart shapes, cupcake shapes etc.) to create new and unusual shaped crayons or embellishment's for cards or scrapbooks. (BUT TAKE CARE AS LIQUID WAX IS VERY HOT).