World Book Day costumes...

[katem98]

Out of curiosity, do you make your child's outfit or buy them? Either are fine (obviously) but as a child we always made our outfits with what we had in the house and it now seems everyone buys them. Outfits are £15+ which seems silly for one day. I want to make DS's costume but don't want him to be the only one with a handmade if everyone else buys theirs. Hes reception age but hate the thought of him sticking out like a sore thumb.

My village has a dressing up library which is a great idea. Its fee to hire with £1 deposit.

Ive never had to use it as too fond of duck tape and cardboard. Plus DD chooses characters not usually chosen - so no costumes in the library. I usually get her to decide straight after xmas so I have time to source items on vinted etc. Now shes older its clothes in set colours she will wear as normal clothes after, Ive only got next year and then shes at High School.

Now the cost of materials for 'family learning' projects the school set are another matter. Roman shields and models of planets... grrr.

Mine are always bought, however its often something they already have. Child will want to be Spiderman or a Stormtrooper and I just find a book that goes!

My DD is 2 and will be in nursery on WBD. Just got a notification about it and I almost panicked but relaxed when all they asked was that we bring in a book for them to share at nursery. No requests for a costume or anything...although I just remembered DD has a Gruffalo dress she was given as a Christmas present (lovely navy and white striped one with Gruffalo characters on it) so might send her to nursery wearing that :)

I always put my children in handmade costumes, I think they look much better and I can make sure they are comfortable all day! In our school it’s 50/50 with shop bought/handmade but shop bought never win the prizes for best dressed…

We buy but it isn't just for 1 day as my DD loves dress up so it always gets plenty of use, then sell on vinted once we're done

I make, but steer dc towards something easy

DD (4) wanted to go as Elsa/Snow Queen (tried my best to convince her otherwise but she would not change her mind especially when we do have two Frozen books featuring Elsa so she got me on a technicality). However it was early enough for me to find and buy one off Vinted for a fiver. She's Elsa-obsessed so I know she'll wear it loads anyway.

My suggestion was one of the Paper Dolls - wear her own dress or I was willing to make a paper dress to tack onto a dress! I'm not even into crafts but was willing to do it - but nope, Elsa it is!

It depends what my DD wants to go as. Sometimes it's new, sometimes pulled together from things we already own, sometimes a bit of both, but most of the components get used again at some point.

I'll get mullered for this, but since it's a celebration of reading and books, I'm staunchly against pulling out a Disney princess dress already owned and DD really loves dressing as a character she's connected with through reading.

Bit mixed I suppose, my eldest is in Year 2 and is going as Hedwig - I bought a proper Hedwig cloak last year in a H&M sale and she's got a white Hogwarts t-shirt and white joggers to wear. I did buy white craft feathers though and I'm going to plait them into her hair!

My middle child is in preschool and doesn't want to be anything other than Elsa, so I'm just going to let her get on with that, hah.

Cobble together anything easy. Wartime child, old school uniform and a gas mask. Covers lots of books. Voldemort, witches cape and a stuffed snake. Ballet stuff for Angelenia or Ballet shoes. School uniform and a wand, Hermione. Jeans, boots, and a leather jacket, bow and arrow, Katniss. Obviously these covered a number of years. One of my DD's had waist length white blonde hair, she did Galadrial a couple of years, with a coronet and a long white silky dress we found in a charity shop.

Neither me nor DH are crafty at all so no chance of making anything.

Thankfully DS' school this year has said costumes or pjs for all. DS and most of his friends want to go in in pjs

Personally I think just buying a costume isn't really in the spirit...
That said last year I just forgot so maybe I'm not the best judge! In my defence I was just about to have a baby!

This year I have made a champion effort with headdresses made from cereal boxes. DS is going as the very hungry caterpillar (green felt circles stuck on a top, rainbow leggings, headdress). and DD is going as miffy (blue dress, white tights, red balloon, miffy headdress).
The only thing I bought was the white tights but she'll wear them again loads.

Ours is probably 1/5th don't bother. Then about 1/3 or who's left hand make
Rest shop brought.

This year I've brought but I brought in the sale and I didn't buy something he'd only wear once.

We use what we have at home, both children have been allowed a cheap accessory (<£4) to go with their outfit but as they’re books they enjoy it’s things we have “in stock”.

We never had fancy dress when I was a child apart from Halloween.

For my son I order costumes off of vinted. He's got an awesome dinosaur costume which was £2. You just have to be organised to allow time for delivery.

We 'cobbled things together'. But I love making costumes etc and generally what we made was better than shop bought generic costume.

Mine usually went as the worst witch every year - a doddle, school uniform plus witch hat and soft toy cat

We are just being words this year so I am being 'shiny'!

Mixture of made, accessories added and dressing up but even if bought fancy dress it was stuff we already had in. So crown and cloak - Peter from Narnia, grey jumper and trousers and homemade ears and tail Reepicheep from Narnia, add tutu - Angelina ballerina. Lab coat, toy Dr's kit and soft toy animal - Dr Doolittle. Mil is an excellent knitter so so had Thomas the Tank Engine hand knit jumper which he wore one year, later on he had a red and black striped Dennis the Menace jumper so teamed with pe shorts and his hair gelled a bit that was easy.