Fancy dress nightmare!!

[thankgodformerlot]

Please help me! next week is WORLD BOOK DAY at the primary school I work at. All the pupils and staff have to dress up in costume. My two boys attend this school as well and I have already spent a fortune on halloween costumes for later this month and now have bought two more costumes for the book day so I now have no money left for myself (typical!!) so pleeease help me come up with ideas of book characters that i could easily make or find in my pitiful excuse of a wardrobe. I am a BIG girl (size 18) so please dont suggest hot pants or mini skirts as they have n't been in my wardrobe since 1999!!

Miss Battle-Axe?

One of the female characters from Harry Potter - Mrs Weasley, Professor Sprout, Professor Trelawny, Professor Umbridge etc. ??

Mary Poppins? Long skirt, buttoned up blouse, brolly

Miss Havisham, in yours or someone elses wedding dress

Anything vaguely resembling a cape and do something witchy a la Harry Potter or any other book witch.

These non-Muggles wear a rather odd assortment of clothes so you could adapt to suit your own clothes! A wand would help you, too!

Miss grinch I'll from Matilda, hair in a bun, draw on a few whiskers, buttoned up shirt and clompy shoes

That should say miss trunchbull

Your normal or most teacher-y clothes = Miss Honey.

harryiet and his bucketful of dinosaurs - jeans, tshirt, plastic bucket and a couple of toy dinosaurs (hoping you might be able to borrow those from your boys!)

Must admit i always aim to go for characters that wear normal dress and just need a simple accessory or label for ease, but I'm normally doing it for ds1 rather than me!

Alternatively can you think of any books where the mum wears pjs and dressing gown? If you have pjs and dg that are suitable for wearing into school that is!

How about that teacher in Matilda that gets zapped by matilda and ends up with a cat's tail (long time since I read it - could have got the story/details wrong!) - just make yourself a cat's tail out of some felt or crepe paper etc...

good luck!

Haha don't even get me started on World Book Day. Last year we were told to send DCs as their 'favourite' book character. Of all the books in the world, DS's at the time happened to be Things by Roger Hargreaves. If youve no idea what a Thing is, see bit.ly/SRvAZS. I duly stayed up half the night creating a masterpiece costume out of a brown pillowcase and paper plates. DS went in looking like a giant turd. To cap it all, the little darling who had been desperate to be said Thing promptly burst into tears on arriving at nursery and wailed that he didn't want to wear the costume. Now his nursery team blatantly think I am some cruel enforcer of bizarre poo-like costumes

where's wally is easy - striped t shirt and 3D glasses with the lens knocked out - everyone will know who you're meant to be!