Across the Story Bridge....

I love Book Week. It takes me back to when I was younger and dressing up in something that my mum had made for either myself or my sister and getting to parade around with all the other excited children. The costume I most remember was a colonial dress that my mum originally made for my older sister, I couldn't wait to grow taller so that I too could one day wear that special dress for my own book week character. I know there are some traditions that have gotten lost along the years, but I'm very thankful that Book Week hasn't been one of them.


This year's theme was "Across the Story Bridge" which was interpreted as being any story book character. Jai showed how similar he is to his big brother and wanted to dress up as Rascal from Paul Jennings "Rascal the Dragon" series. This is the same character Jordan chose for his own very first book week years ago. I followed a basic Burda pattern for the pull on pants and my trusty Burda hooded top pattern for the top (the one I used for Jordan's last top blogged here). I sewed the spikes down the centre of the hood and also in the seam I added into the middle of the back pattern. The tail is a separate piece which I attached to a belt I made so that he could take it off if he wanted too (but he didn't). The wings are also removable, they attach to a button in the middle of the back and then have an elastic wrist band. Seeing Jai love this costume so much was the best reward for all the time I spent sewing it - he barely took it off after the days that followed.


Jordan took a bit longer to decide who to go as, I think it's harder for the older ones as they don't want to choose a character that is seen as being 'babyish'. Around a week before the big event, I walked into Jordan's room to see him reading Roald Dahl's book "The Twits" and I mentioned that Mr Twit could be a good option (Jordan had previously rejected my earlier suggestions of 'Captain Underpants' or David from "The Fire Within") Jordan thankfully thought this was a good idea so off to the op shop we went in search of a suit and then I bought the wig from Spotlight and made the beard from wool and some off cuts of the wig as it was originally too long.

I got off quite lightly for Jordan's costume, the only sewing was attaching the elastic to the felt base for the beard and some hand sewing to hem up the pants!

Here is Jordan's very first book week in the Rascal dress up I made for him. Gosh, that was so long ago now, I didn't even own a sewing machine. I bought the top and pants (I remember orange being quite the "In" colour back then). The tail is all hand sewn and I ended up buying fairy wings and spray painting them and adding the spikes down the middle. Interesting to see how far I've come in 5 years!

Hee hee, he was quite the poser back then!

Natalie
xx

Pre-Christmas Wrap Up

Phew, what a busy time it has been here! I've sent my lovely husband off to the park with our children so that I can sort through all the photos I have here of all my pre-Christmas creations that I didn't have time to blog. It's funny how when I first started to think back to last month, I didn't feel as if I got many things done, but it's wonderful to have these photos that prove otherwise!

December saw Jai's last month at kindy, with a big end of year kindy concert and I had volunteered to help out with face painting. One of the other kindy mum's, Linda, has her own face painting business and she ran a morning workshop to teach us the basics. As I'd only used the face painting kit I bought a couple of times at home with my boys I needed lots of tips! I came home and practiced on my two boys and nephew Copper, they all chose designs from the book that came with my kit.

Jordan being a robot

Jai wanted to be a crocodile

Cooper chose to be a shark

I had hoped my little miss would let me practice some more girly things like butterflies, but being almost two and sitting still for more than 30 seconds at a time just doesn't go together! Thankfully the few girls I did paint on the night liked the butterflies I did for them and most of the boys wanted to be tigers, which I found the easiest.

Jai as a tiger for the concert

We were asked to donate some food that could be sold on the night so I made some reindeer cupcakes
For Christmas gifts I decided to make some yummy peppermint fudge for Jai to give out to the kindy teachers as well.

Next there were costumes to make. Cooper needed a dinosaur costume for his end of year concert

Unfortunately I didn't get photos of the others I made, I helped out with some sheep, cow, and donkey dress ups for Jordan's school play - one of the mum's made the hoods and I attached on the ears. Jai was also a donkey in our church play, so I made up a hood with donkey ears and a donkey tail as well.

I made a pair of little baby shoes for my friend's adorable little Emily (these match the outfit in this post). I used the cloth shoe pattern from the Meet Me At Mikes books - these were nice and simple to make, I wish my little miss would fit them still.
I sent Jordan on a mission to find out what his teacher's favourite colour was, and he reported back that she liked red and black. I've been wanting to try out the Buttercup bag pattern by Rae for awhile now, so I found some lovely red and black floral quilters fabric in my stash and I love how it turned out. I think I need to make one (or a few) of these for myself.

I also made her a wire wrapped necklace with earrings to match.


I also finally finished off this skirt for Cheriese, all it needed was the ribbon hem and waistband done - I had it half done when I made the larger size for a friend's daughter a couple of months ago.
Finally here's a photo of me and my three little darlings while we waited for the Christmas pageant to start.

I'll leave the Christmas day post for later, this one is already long enough and if you've gotten to the end thank you so much and I promise that I will try to be more regular with my blog updates this year.

Natalie xx

Dress-up sewing

I really need to be making more clothes for my 3, they are all growing so fast, but we have had a couple of dress up events to go too, so costumes have become more of a priority!

First up we had a movie themed quiz night for Jordan's school. We chose the movie "Star Wars" for our table and seeing as Jordan already had his Commander Cody costume, I just needed to whip up something for Jai, Cheriese, my nephew Cooper and myself. Jai has part of a Darth Vader costume - well really only the cape left, so he wore that with some black pants and a black top and I only had to print him out a mask and the voice changer thing and he was done! Cooper wanted to go as Yoda, so off to Spotlight I went and came back with a metre or so of brown polar fleece and made him up a robe and then I got out my face pants to complete the look. There was was enough fleece left over to make a robe for Cheriese - we couldn't all agree if she was a young jedi Padawan or one of the jawas! I decided to go as Princess Leia, so just made a simple tunic out of a white panne velvet in my stash and put my hair up in the side buns. Here's some quick photos:

Jordan and Cooper

Jai, Cheriese and me

Jai's teddy got to come along too. He was still in his ewok costume from the Star Wars day at the library last holidays!
It was book week at Jordan's school a couple of weeks ago and this year's theme was "Safari". Jordan wanted to go as a lion, so once again off to Spotlight I went and decided that the double bonded polar fleece was the best option, with one side being a tan colour and the other a dark brown. I found a Spotlight "Get Creative" brand tracksuit pattern that goes from a size 3- 12 in my stash that I forgot I even had and used it for the lion costume. I added strips of the two tone fleece around the hood for the mane and sewed a tail onto the pants. Jordan loved it, but as it was so thick and warm he could only keep it on until the end of the parade - it was one of our few warm days and he was getting too hot! I'm sure it'll be worn again though as all of my three littlies love playing dress up. Jai didn't quite understand why Jordan got to dress up and he didn't, I pointed out that it was a special thing that Jordan got to do at school and that he would be able to join in next year, but he got a bit sad about that so I said that I could make him a quick dress up to wear while he watched the parade as well. So another trip to Spotlight where I scoured for 'cheetah' fabric as that was what Jai wanted to go as. I ended finding only one piece of cheetah printed felt left, so I grabbed it. By the time I finished Jordan's costume, it was after midnight, so I decided to make a quick and easy cheetah tail and then a simple polar fleece hood with some cheetah ears sewn on. In the morning I quickly cut up the remaining scraps of the felt, grabbed one of the tunic tops I'd made for the church play and asked Steve to hot glue gun the scraps to it while I was getting everyone ready in the morning. Phew! was a busy night/morning, but they both had a great time at the parade!. Here's the photos.

say "Roar"!!

Lions can play piano too!

Cheetah's like to climb

and pose too!

Cheriese loved seeing all the costumes and was clapping and saying "yay" as each class got up on stage.

Hmmm, wonder what the theme will be for next year? Hopefully I can find it out earlier and get a head start next year lol.

Natalie
xx