Book Week 2014

Every year most Australian schools have a special 'Book Week' celebration that encourage the kids to read more books and fostering a reading relationship. The children are asked to bring a book that goes with their costume. Every year I leave organising a costume to the last minute so my son ends up wearing his everyday clothes and he goes as his favourite author. This year I was determined to be better organised as I now have two costumes to come up with. If I get it right this year then next year will be a breeze especially with three kids at school. 

The good thing about this years Book Week is that my son already knew what it was he wanted to go as and it wasn't an author. The bad news was I didn't have anything he needed to create his costume so I went off to the thrift shop to see what they had. I was really lucky to find an army t-shirt and army cargo pants for nine dollars. This was a little more than I wanted to pay but he would be more comfortable wearing a cotton outfit than the cheap nylon dress up outfit the local shop was selling for ten dollars. With a few extra accessories the entire outfit has cost me fifteen dollars but he's so excited to be going as a army private that it's money well spent.

My daughter started Prep this year so her costume requirements are different. The class had a theme so each Prep class was asked to come as a character from a fairytale. Many of the girls chose to come as a princess (Frozen was a popular choice). The boys had the opportunity to come as fairytale character, our class had more superheroes represented than Prince Charming. With this in mind I jumped on Pinterest to see what I could find for my daughter. We were thinking of dressing up as a fairy but we thought this fairy costume would be very different from all the other fairy costumes that might be worn on the day.

source

I found these instructions at Lilliedale for her Book Fairy Costume and the best thing was she provided detailed instructions that helped when I put the costume together. The best part about this costume was that all I needed to purchase were a few second hand children's storybooks, ribbon and a few glue sticks which cost me less than eight dollars. 

I made a few changes to the wings so that they looked more fairy like and less like the pages were falling out of the book. I didn't reinforce the book with wire but I did use two books to stabilise it so that it stayed in place. I also used a drill bit to make the hole as I didn't have anything else that would make a hole big enough so that the ribbon would thread through to tie around her arms.

1. Remove pages from book and glue to book.
2. Glue both books together making sure the cover is on display.
3. Drill through both books.
4. Insert ribbon so that it can be tied off.

The outfit was a great success, with a heap of parents stopping to comment on the costume and asking how I made it. The only negative aspect to the outfit was that it was impossible to sit in the car while wearing it. I ended up having to place it on the front seat and dress her at school. She loved wearing it and she didn't complain once. However with the weather being questionable the school cancelled the parade and they took the children into the school hall. Each year level had to sit down prior to been called up on stage, they showed off their costumes and then they returned to sitting down on the floor. As you can imagine she didn't have a big area to sit so the skirt was compromised. 

Although she had to sit down for the best part of ninety minutes. She did a good job looking after it, only a few cones came away from the ribbon. I'd bought my glue gun with me to school in case anything like this happened so I was able to fix it quickly without it causing any problems.

From the look on her face she had a great day and after the class pictures were taken I took her costume home with me. Having her wear it for the entire day would have resulted in her not being able to play and the costume would have gotten in the way. When I picked her up from school she was still wearing her crown and she told me that the librarian had come and talked to her at lunchtime. Apparently the librarian had never seen anyone like it in all the years she'd been working. Overall, it was a great costume and she looked beautiful.

Megan

Colourful Tulle Tutu

We have a heap of events coming up in the next few weeks at Kindergarten and school which require me to create outfits for the kids to wear. The first event we have is the Kindy Disco. Some of the lessons they've been doing is learning about patterns so the teachers have asked the kids to wear a patterned outfit. After looking through her wardrobe I soon discovered that she would be wearing solid colours so I decided to make her a skirt.

After talking with Viveca I soon realised that she didn't want an A-line skirt she wanted a tulle skirt so that she could look like a ballerina when she went to the disco. So I took her to Spotlight as I had a 30% off discount voucher which I was able to use store wide. Viveca decided that she wanted her skirt to have her four favourite colours in it so she picked out a glittery yellow, hot pink, red and a glittery purple. These four colours formed the pattern of her skirt. We also decided on a hot pink ribbon to use so that she could have a pretty bow on the front of her skirt. Originally, I was going to sew together a piece of elastic to make the waistband but after searching Youtube I decided to use the ribbon that I'd bought as the waistband instead.

After watching the video by NashvilleWraps I knew that I had the wrong sized ribbon but I thought I'd give it a try before rushing off to the shops again for more ribbon. I'd purchased one metre of soft tulle (1.09 yards) in each colour so in total I had 4 metres (4.37 yards). Using a rotary cutter I cut my pieces three inches wide as six inches didn't provide enough pieces of tulle to attach to the ribbon. I also used every part of the tulle so if I had two inches left over I used those to fill in spaces that needed it. I'm really happy with it and for $27.00 it might not be cheap but it's original.

Overall I'm really happy with our Tulle Tutu and Viveca loves it. She's going to wear black leggings so that the tulle doesn't itch her in any way shape or form as I'd hate to be halfway through the night and she's wanting to remove the skirt. She's already put her outfit together and she's counting down the the day's until the Kindy Disco. (Sorry about the picture but after been out all day the light wasn't working for me.)

I'm thinking that I might make a couple more for Christmas Day as I can picture both my girls wearing pretty glittery red and green tulle tutu's on Christmas morning. So tell me what you think does she look like she's ready to rock and roll on Friday night?

Megan

Using a Circle Skirt to creat a Teacher's Gift.

Caelan had three weeks of school left when I started this project and as you can imagine there are so many end of year activities going on it can become difficult staying on top of things. So with three weeks remaining I have been thinking about what he can give his Year 2 teacher as a end of year/Christmas gift. She is due to have her first child in January so something for the baby was essential.  As she's expecting a little girl, I knew that I wanted to make a few of Dana's Circle Skirt's to help form part of the gift that Caelan would present to Mrs Volf during the last week of school.

 

Having found a few images of finished circle skirt's I knew I wanted to use fabrics that weren't your typical baby prints, that were both pastel and bright colours, and I wanted to refashion at least one of the baby skirt's from clothes that I no longer wore. As the gift was something Caelan was presenting to his teacher I involved him right from the start, he helped pick out all the fabric chosen for the skirt's. I then went off to Lincraft and Kmart to purchase the elastic as I didn't have any in my large sewing box. While at Lincraft I found some more pretty cotton fabric and I grabbed this to add to the pile. I spent a total of $17.00 for the elastic and fabric which allowed me to make at least 6 skirts at a cost of $2.83 per skirt. Now as I'm also giving her a few unused items of clothing that I received when I had my girls I decided to make at least three skirts. So not a bad gift for $8.50, I know of other mother's who will spend at least $20 per teacher.

 

I haven't provided you with a step by step tutorial because Dana did a really good job and her instructions are easy and the pictures will help you make your skirt. So if you go HERE you'll find the instructions for the circle skirt (adult and girls sizing) and if you want to make the double circle skirt (pattern for the baby size) you'll find it HERE.

Well school finished on Friday 30th November and as you can imagine with everything going on I ran out of time to make the three circle skirts and secondly I didn't take any photo's of the ONE I actually made. I was a little unhappy with the one I did make but I did decide to give it to Mrs Volf especially as we aren't planning on having any more babies. Due to things moving quicker than I planned I had to quickly come up with another idea for Caelan to give his teacher and I knew that he would want something big, baby related and something handmade.

My circle shirt was difficult to make while the
kid's were running around.

The handmade element was going to be a little tricky as I'd only made the one skirt and to just give that on its own would look a little sad. Five years ago while I'd been pregnant with Mackenna I'd been invited to a baby shower and I'd made a Nappy Cake for the expectation mother. Although it was fun to do, the cost of the gift wasn't cheap, it took hours to do and in the end she was given a heap of newborn baby nappies.

When I'd been de-cluttering the house I had come across a heap of babies and toddlers clothing that we'd been given or that Viveca (Mrs Volf is due around the same time Viveca was born) had worn once or twice. I thought that it would be a good way to give Mrs Volf a mixture of new and used things because lets face it there are only so many things a new born actually needs.

I assembled all the pieces that I was going to give her, making suit to match two piece suits up so that they were together before I folded and rolled everything into small cylinder shapes. I then set about wrapping an elastic band or a bit of curling ribbon around each item so that they would stay secure once assembled. I had two baby wraps that I used to secure everything into place and then I attached a piece of ribbon around each layer.

The bottom layer was the biggest in width and this formed the first tier to my cake. To this I attached a pram toy to jazz up the appearance and to give it a little bit of character. The second tier was filled with onesie, t-shirts and other size 0000 clothing. Again I wrapped a muslin baby wrap around it and then I tired a long piece of grey ribbon (this ribbon had come off one of my wedding presents back in 2004) around its base before securing it with a lovely bow.

The last thing that I did was place my cute little pink circle skirt over a toy crab and attach a ribbon to its claw. I then sat each tier on top of the other and before I knew it I was finished. It only took me an hour to put together which was great considering I only had 95 minutes before I had to drop our gift off at school.

When I arrived at school I handed Caelan his blank Christmas card so that he could write on it for Mrs Volf. I waited for quiet a while to get a photograph that I could share but I was happy with the end result. The children guided Mrs Volf who had her eyes closed over to the present while Caelan and a few other student's stood in front of. Caelan then told the children to move aside and he told Mrs Volf that she could open her eyes. Her reaction was priceless. Caelan felt so special and when I picked him up an hour later he couldn't stop talking about how his present looked like a cake and it was so big.

Mrs Volf's expression was priceless and Caelan's present grabbed the entire classes attention.

So what do you think? I think that I did really well considering that my Clothing Cake was a last minute gift. I think I worked well under pressure and I know that Caelan was extremely happy with his mother's efforts and he was proud to present Mrs Volf with such a creative present. I'm glad that she's been the after school art teacher for the last few years because adding the few pieces of ribbon, the crab, card and colours made this gift perfect. I'm hoping that none of the kid's teacher's get pregnant in the future as each one of the kid's might expect something like this Clothing Cake to arrive at school.

Megan