World Book Day DIY Dress UP

Now if you've read my blog before, you will know how I feel about school dress up days! Hate is a strong word, I think detest is probably a little  more accurate!

Putting my feelings to one side: it's World Book Day, and naturally the Monkey-Moos have to dress up as their favourite book characters. All fine and dandy, but my two head strong monkeys refused to use the pirate outfits we already have (Pirates next door) or the Peter Pan one we had from previous years and instead insisted on Greg (Diary of a Wimpy Kid) and Mr Snow (Mr Men series)....here in lies a problem...white...boys want to wear white...NOOOOOOO!!!

After running around desperately trying to locate White jumpers for the Fussy Monkey-Moos to wear (it is after all still too cold to do t-shirts) and coming up empty handed, I managed to find the last white long sleeve t-shirt in Monkey-Moo #1's size but nothing for #2.

Being as crafty (in the sly sense of that word) as I am, I set about planting seeds to chang Mr Snow to Mr Bump. #2 took some serious convincing. But I won in the end! Yay me!

So with a £3 Blue Jumper, two bandages and a sheet of black felt, I got to work!

A bit of sewing, a lot of pinning and a little cutting.

Tadah..
We have our little MR Bump!

After all that sewing and re-pinning...they seemed to have a life of their own those pins.... Greg aka Wimpy Kid was a simple 20 minute job!

Getting Monkey-Moo#1 to decided on a facial expression wasn't nearly as easy as it sounds. After several changes we settled on one (which changed again at the last minute), located some card, an old polystyrene pizza round some double sided tape and got out a trusty marker pen. Ready set go!

Sketched, drawn and then cut, added details and left a small "neck" so Monkey-Moo could hold it up.
Hello Greg!

Crimean War- Walking Wounded

Another long overdue post, that's been sitting here written for months that I simply forgot to post!

Nothing fills me with as much dread as dress up days for school, I can just about deal with a Pyjama day, simple easy and no fuss at all, but the rest of them, book day, always with a theme that makes it more difficult than just pulling something out the cupboard, and maths week which lets face it - is just so dull you can't make it exciting! So you can imagine the look on my face when Monkey-Moo came home from school with a letter instructing that their year would be doing a Crimean war dress up, girls as Florence Nightingale and the boys as soldiers! pffft.

I was happily about to send him off in a white t-shirt ("Pretend it's your vest under your soldiers uniform" I said )  bandaged up, and call him the Walking Wounded! Then after a few discussion at the school gate with other Moms, I started to get pangs of guilt that I wasn't putting much effort into this at all.

With little over 12 hours to go, one fabulous phone call from another mom, currently in the supermarket- " I'm picking up a Red Sweatshirt, it comes in a two pack, I'll drop it round on my way home!" SAVED!

OK send him in red with bandages, still Walking Wounded, it's good enough right? Right? No, didn't think so! Oh no dinner time. Kids to bath, Little Monkey to bed.

Light Bulb!

 

Get paper plates. Get gold paint. Bandages. Find old ribbons. Scissors. Double sided tape. and GO!

Enlist Monkey-Moos painting skills.

 

 

 We have buttons!

A bit of double sided tape, a snip or two, yes that will do!

 

 

More gold paint!

Send Monkey-Moo to bed, it's getting late. Wait for paint to dry.

 

Quick assembly 15 minutes before it's time to head to school, double sided tape all the way, throw on a bandage! (no fake blood here, but some great moms did add that touch.)

 

 

Ready to go! My Walking Wounded! Proud as punch!