Friday, September 7, 2012

Lords of the Rings and lady of the capes


Better late than never - some pictures of my boys dressed up for Book Week assembly last Friday.
Charlie decided to be Gandalf the White from Lord of the Rings. He very carefully sliced the three-sided end of that staff out of thick cardboard with a craft knife. He also made himself a wooden sword that even has a rune carved into the handle.

 The cape is made from an old white sheet (plus a little fancy trim), adapting the good ol' Reversible Hooded Play Cape pattern from Growing Up Sew Liberated. Op-shopped belt, white t-shirt and taekwondo pants finished the ensemble. I tried to straighten his hair with the hair dryer but those curls just kept springing back!

Jasper decided to go with the theme and chose Legolas. An op-shopped tablecloth became his cape, he fashioned himself a bow and arrows and instructed me on how to sew a quiver from some denim scraps and webbing.

(Jasper is a master with the hot glue gun.)

I love that the Book Week tradition is still encouraging our kids to enjoy dressing up, right through primary school. There's "so much scope for imagination" as Anne Shirley would say, within the broad theme of book characters. (I just finished reading Anne of Green Gables to Charlie and Jasper and although one book-loving male friend suggested it was tantamount to abuse to read that to my boys, they tolerated it remarkably well... Charlie remarked at the end "that was actually quite good".)

The boys still really enjoy me reading aloud to them so I'm going to keep that going as long as possible. We have moved on now to Wonder which I read about at Flossie Teacakes (sorry I can't find the specific post) and although we haven't finished yet I can already highly recommend it for its exploration of tween-age friendships and emotions. The boys are loving it ("one more chapter, pleeease?") and it's quite funny, too.

Today the kids have a 'pupil free day' (i.e. no school) and I'm taking the lazy option of letting them play as much Wii and computer games as they like so long as they do a few small jobs for me and don't fight. May the parenting police forgive me. I'm hoping to get some sewing done!

- Jane x

5 comments:

  1. Oh, Jane - I love the boys' costumes! How fabulous :-) Love that they were so involved in creating them too

    Our school cancelled our Book Week Parade this year - boo :-(

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh what a shame your school's parade was cancelled! I am generally pretty impressed with the inventiveness of a lot of the costumes and how sometimes the simplest things work best.
      On another note, your lovely Poppy Tunic has kick-started me with another one of those which I'm working on right now!

      Delete
  2. I love how creative your boys are! Those are great costumes! (And you just reminded me how much I love Anne of green gables...we must be kindred spirits)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Look at them! Excellent costumes! I'm especially digging that quiver.

    I love that you read them Anne of Green Gables. My parents read outloud to me a lot growing up, and I think my mom actually read Anne of Green Gables to me, and I cried and cried at the end! Other favorites included The Secret Garden, Huck Finn, Winnie the Pooh, and yes, the Hobbit. Ah, you're taking me back. I hope to continue that tradition with my children, but right now, I can hardly get Joe to concentrate on one board book!

    ReplyDelete
  4. They look great! I agree, Book Day is such a good idea, our school didn't dress up last year, but I've seen it back in the diary for this time around so hopefully the boys will get to use their imaginations, last time Felix went as 'Messy Monster' which is a character from Okido magazine (a science and art mag for kids), I'm kind of hoping Charlie might choose the same so it gets worn twice. I too love seeing how creative your boys are. Bethx

    ReplyDelete

Hey, I would really love to know what you think. Go on!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...