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.

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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