World Book Day 2015

This year was the first year that Louis and Rowan have taken part in World Book Day and since I really felt that they’d missed out before, I vowed to make their costumes good ones. I asked the boys what they wanted to be, but I wasn’t prepared for their answers!

Rowan immediately declared his desire to become Hairy Maclary; a canine character created by Lynley Dodd.

How the heck was I going transform a four year old boy into a long haired dog?! I decided that wool was going to be my best bet. Wool, and patience.

I started with a long sleeved black t-shirt, a ball of grey wool, two balls of black wool, a darning needle, a hugely optimistic attitude and a bucket load of coffee.

 

And so, I spent no less than 14 hours over two days threading loops of wool through a top. My fingers were sore, my patience was thin, I ruined the first top and had to start again (!) but eventually Rowan’s Hairy Maclary costume started to take shape and he was really pleased with it!

I threaded the body of the top, because as you can see from the picture above, Hairy Maclary doesn’t have hairy limbs, thank goodness.

Rowan wore sports leggings and a black skin top underneath his costume, and then come 3am on World Book Day, I hacked desperately at a woolly black and grey hat and fashioned some ears. I’ll be honest – I didn’t care one iota what the ears looked like by that point. I think they looked alright in the end!

The sign around his neck reads ‘ruin this outfit and my mum will pull your ears off’.

I jest – just. One one side it says ‘Hairy Maclary’ and on the reverse it says ‘If found, please return to Donaldson’s Dairy’.

Louis’ first response to my question of what costume he wanted for World Book Day was to ask if it had to be a fiction book. If not, could he please go as a bald eagle? I panicked.

After discussing the pros and cons of a bald eagle outfit, Louis opted for Mr. Twit instead. I did a happy dance inside my heart. All I needed was a long, filthy beard, messy hair, a blue suit .. oh. Perhaps it wasn’t as easy as I’d first anticipated!

Louis’ costume was FAR less time consuming, for me anyway. I drafted in some help from an aunt to knit Louis’ beard, and she excelled herself by adding tiny cuttings of sponge and cloth to represent Mr. Twit’s famous beard food!

I got an old school shirt from a friend whose son has just left school and my husband smeared it with paint to make it appear to be full of food slops.

Then I taped a ‘glue’ sign to an old Halloween bucket, added a paintbrush, whacked some jeans on him .. et voilà!

The boys were really pleased with their outfits, and I was quite proud of them!

They both came out of school later that day with a prize bag – two children from each class had been given prizes for best costume and they had both been awarded a gift. Happy boys all round.

I feel I must add to this post, that we celebrated World Book Day on a Friday. The same Friday I had had a babysitter (my sister) booked in for months so Ted and I could go out for a meal. We went out at 6.30pm, I ordered coffee half way through a meal in an attempt to stay awake, and we were home for ten.

Moral of the story? Don’t stay up until the early hours, sewing dogs.