Don't get the Book Week blues

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I freakin' LOVE Book Week.

Because my love of all things literature, (particularly children's books and reading with kids), and my love of costumes can triumphantly combine to ensure adorable children get dressed up and get excited about reading. BOOYAH!!!

Seriously, it's my favourite time of the school year.

The peeps at Costume Box sent some costumes for Tricks and Bobbin to play in, and because we're well in to our costumes and have a few already, they made sure to send me some that weren't just for this week, but forever. Because costumes are not just for Book Week. You have to love them, and take care of them, and clean up after them, and oops, I've gone off on a tangent.

Tricks is lovin' his Batman costume. It lights up, so he is well chuffed. He went in to MapGuy's work for a few hours the other day and insisted on wearing it. "Mum, do you think people will think I'm the real Batman?". Yeah, dude, you've got the Christian Bale voice going on, they'll all think you're him.

A video posted by glow (@glowless) on Aug 17, 2015 at 2:16am PDT

It's a smidge too big for him right now because he's at the beginning of that size range, but it means he will get a good two years out of it and for now I just roll up the legs. It's all built in muscles or "boobies" as he'll tell you, utility belt, and a freakin' sweet mask cape combo with ears that actually stay up! Because there is nothing worse than Batman with sad, droopy ears.

Bobbin was sent a monster costume, and it could not be more appropriate. Because she's cute, and growly, and has fangs. Or something like that. She adores it and keeps picking up a little monster puppet we have and saying it's her baby. TOTES ADORBS! It makes me think of Boo from Monster's Inc and she keeps saying "Raaaar" at everyone when she wears it.

168 photos and these two of Bobbin were the best. Kid doesn't stop moving.

If the idea of dressing your kids up fills you with dread, check out the Costume Box blog for Book Week costume ideas (it's quite gendered, but you can ignore that - I do) or head straight to the store and get a cool costume with free express delivery for orders over $75 (or $5.99 for orders under $75) - yes, even to WA!! I couldn't believe it when I got my order the next business day, I'm used to waiting 7-10 days even for "rush" mail.

What are your kids dressing up as? I'm gonna dress up at school pick up time :) 

How to make a kids viking costume on a budget

The Trickster was invited to an awesome How To Train Your Dragon party a few weeks ago, and because he is a little obsessed with dress up at the moment (gee, where does he get that from? *wink wink*), he said he wanted to be a viking for the day. Even after being told it wasn't actually a dress up party. The kid is a fabulous.

I didn't want to spend a lot of money on a costume and I've been embracing my inner craft blogger of late, so I decided to MAKE a costume. Ambitious, much? I thought I could stitch some material together and it would be quite, ahem, rustic and therefore historically correct. Vikings didn't have overlockers, ya know!

SO I checked for some faux fur material but on my way I stumbled across this:

Oh yeah, I did. I sent my kid to a party wearing a bathmat and toilet mat set. That cost $6 in a 50% off sale at Best and Less. Classy shit.

It's kinda fur-like, and the toilet mat part was even already shaped for a vest meaning less cutting work for Miss Lazypants. I got to work, cutting the bathmat up and sewing it, occasionally holding it up to the little guy to see if it was looking vest-y. My year eight home ec. teacher would have a seizure if she knew I was using my sewing "skills" 20 years later. Related: Holy shit it's been 20 years since I started high school.

I threw the off cuts from the arm holes down and they landed in the shape of a beard and moustache... BRAINWAVE! All vikings need facial hair for historical accuracy, yes? The longer offcuts from the bath mat I kept for leg thingamajigs that I saw some of the vikings wearing in the movie. They look like legwarmers but it just doesn't sound butch enough to say viking legwarmers, does it? I grabbed some shoelaces from the supermarket for $1 to tie them on. Because vikings didn't have safety pins. I'm assured historical accuracy is fun.

Then it was on to the weapons. I was pointed in the direction of a tutorial to make viking hats (because historical accuracy can be thrown out the window if things are cute) and shields. Some late night cardboard cutting with the help of MapGuy who can trace his roots back to the vikings (which makes up for the whole viking hat thing, ya know), and some masking tape and gaffa tape produced awesome results:

All that was left was to put the whole ensemble together. It's a little rustic, but that is part of it's charm. Because I had the cardboard (a nappy box) and the two lots of tape, those parts were pretty much free, meaning my outlay for the whole project was a whopping $7.

He loved it. I loved it. People could recognize what it was meant to be, and it cost me almost nothing. That's winning in my books.