Friday 11 November 2011

Going Spotty for Children in Need Day!

Well...this is my first post! I have to admit that I have been putting it off for a while as the last couple of weeks have been busy. Today though, I knew I was going to be making my boys their Children in Need Day costumes and thought "why not take some photos along the way?!"

My boys school will be having a spotty hat competition and a spotty costume or spotty pjs parade...Cue Mummy! I always try to recycle things that I already have around the home. I hope you can get some ideas from what we have done.

Last year we had a spotty dinosaur made from fleece blankets, a spotty robot made from a cereal box and bits and bobs and a spotty dressing gown. This year we have a spotty firework, a spotty alien and spotty pjs and hat.

This is what we did for the firework:



My youngest wanted to design his hat first (it didn't start out as a firework, that idea came as we started to make). First I made a cone shape from a cereal box with the flaps cut off. We put the plain grey side on the outside so it could be easily painted later.



We secured it with sticky labels because we didn't have any masking tape (sticky tape can't be painted over). He then wanted to make it a 'marble run' hat...I tried, I really did, but...no. Then the firework idea was born. He is the firework and his hat is the pointy part (all his own idea). He painted it blue then, while we were waiting for it to dry I made the 'fire'! I wanted him to be able to zoom and wizz about the playground, so thought he could have 'fire' shooting from behind and from his wrists.



For the 'fire' I found an old orange net curtain, with a fire-like shine to it, and cut it into strips. I ended up using 6 shorter strips for the wrist bands and 6 longer strips for the waist band. For the wrists I found a scrap of red fleece from a previous project and cut it into a rectangle...



Onto this rectangle of red fleece, I added the orange strips with a simple knot...







Iused 3 for each wrist band. Then I just tied them onto his wrists with enough room for slipping off and on...





He LOVED the 'floatiness' of them and immediately started zooming his arms around! In the end I actually cut each orage strip into two, so there are more 'fire' strands. The longer strips of orange curtain were used in the same way for the waist band, which is a belt.



He had great fun decorating his firework hat. We used some firework pictures we had made last year (and found in the bottom of the craft box!). We got the idea from my friend here: http://www.theimaginationtree.com/2010/09/salad-spinner-art.html

He then added coloured pom poms as spots (I had wanted to upcycle some bottle tops but, alas, I realised I had cleared them out a week earlier...what was I thinking?!)





He will wear a blue jumper with sticky label spots (patiently made by Daddy). I will add a photo of the finished costume and child, in all his excitement, from the morning of the day!

I love making costumes for my boys. Yes, I get stressed when they all bombard me with questions and requests at the same time, but seeing the excitement on the day makes it all worth while! Thank you for reading and I hope it helps to show that costumes can be made easily and cheaply from things already found in the home.


Upcycled objects used:
-cereal box
-orange net curtain
-scrap of red fleece blanket
-bottle tops (if I had not thrown them out!)
-a salad spinner, repurposed to make paintings!

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