Book Week costume: Lost and Found boy
Our household adores Oliver Jeffers. He can do no wrong! His illustrations and stories are so sweet and heartwarming. And those characters he comes up with? Adorable! They're the perfect little characters to bring to life. I wanted to recreate the cover of
Lost and Found
as soon as I saw it. I got close one day when Annika sat in an upside down umbrella at the cricket but there was a cute penguin missing and she wasn't wearing the right gear so I figured a future Book Week would be the right time. And here we are! I asked Immy if she was keen to wear it in the parade and she was so excited and wanted everything perfect - down to the tiniest detail like a little brown suitcase and a tag hanging from the umbrella handle. No pressure, Immy... Well, it may not be perfect but it turned out pretty cute anyway! I don't normally like buying things with the sole purpose of destroying them but when I realised I had already thrown out my old umbrella that didn't close, I searched for a cheap one - this was a whole $4 so I had no problem cutting a hole in it. Especially after one of the inside arms broke within two minutes of Annika stealing it and walking around the house with it. That's what $4 gets you I guess! Painting umbrella fabric wasn't very successful so I bought some yellow and orange cardboard and cut them up. At first I used double-sided tape to stick them on, but after they came away it was the hot glue gun to the rescue yet again!
Lost and Found
umbrella costume tutorial
You'll need...
A small-to-medium-sized umbrella you're happy to ruin. A hooked handle is even better
2 sheets of orange cardboard
2 sheets of yellow cardboard
Black paper or cardboard (optional)
Hot glue gun
Brown kraft paper
String
Scissors
Step 1:
Measure up the cardboard against the umbrella - you want it in-between the metal parts. Cut to size and hot glue gun into place.
Step 2:
Overlap at the centre of the umbrella and continue all around alternating the colours.
Step 3:
Cut a circle from the black card or paper and a smaller circle from the middle and slide it over the point of the umbrella and glue in place to
hide all the joins of the cardboard.
Step 4:
Turn the umbrella over and see where you want the legs to go. I used liquid chalk to draw a quick outline and then just cut through the plastic and into the cardboard. Cut the two pieces together for the neatest line.
Step 5:
Reinforce the cardboard with some more glue around the edges of the hole.
Add a little kraft paper tag from the handle, insert child and have them hold the umbrella and hug a penguin. We made our penguin from paper mache but if you're not that keen (I realise I'd be in the minority here!) maybe you can make a child's day/week/month/year by buying them a penguin Beanie Boo (dear god WHAT IS WITH THOSE THINGS? Why do they love them so much?!)
And also... We didn't have a red and white striped shirt BUT we did have a very stained plain white one so I grabbed some red poster paint and got painting. I stuck good old plain sticky tape into stripes on the top and painted in-between - it made the perfect stencil by peeling off easily and didn't bleed! Steve knitted the hat in the right colours (not that you can really see the orange band!). And a tiny suitcase was also made with a plain brown box, some kraft paper to cover up the stamps, and a little leather strap glued on the top as the handle. And that's it! Imogen is so excited and can't wait for the parade (though I'm sure I'll be carrying home an open, ruined, yellow and orange umbrella as soon as the parade is over!)
Luckily Zak just wants to be Klaus from
A Series of Unfortunate Events
which pretty much involves a pair of glasses, a collared shirt and jumper and maybe a book or two?!? At least it's not a
this year!
I'm thinking this one might be my favourite of the three I created this year (I also made the blue crayon from
and The Queen of Hearts from
). Which do you like the most?