The BG guide to … easy World Book Day costumes

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We all love World Book Day. Lola’s a little obsessive when it comes to dressing up – it has to be right. However, like most mamas, I don’t have a lot of time to pull an outfit together and I have limited skills, so I have been searching for brilliant but easy costumes to make….

Meg & Mog

Lola (at the time of typing!) wants to be Meg. I have most of this outfit from when she wanted to be a ‘proper’ witch at Halloween (no sequins and tutus for my girl, as you can see from the photo!). However, observant as she is, she has informed me she needs a few strands of black hair. Wool, a witches hat and my trusty old glue-gun to the rescue! Add gold buckles on her school shoes and I’m done. I may also make her a felt owl too. The great thing about Jan Pienkowski characters is that they’re very simple. Just print off a large version of the owl and use it as a template.

This could be adapted for so many books – The Witches, The Worst Witch, Room on thE Broom, the Winnie the Witch series – so just add distinguishing details. You could also recycle Halloween skeleton costumes for Funny Bones.

Peter Rabbit

Brown outfit. Blue jacket. Bunny tail. Bit of face paint. Team those with homemade ears on a headband (Martha Stewart has a super easy tutorial) or you could buy a the fabulous bunny dress up kit which includes ears and tail from Shop BG, alternatively, use a printable rabbit mask. Make a felt radish or carrot for extra points. I begged Lola to go as Peter Rabbit. She said no.

Pyjama Wearers

Pyjamas and nighties are a really easy option. Lots of characters wear them. Think Sophie from The BFG and Laura from Laura’s Star. All you need to do is add a few accessories to make the outfits work – Sophie would need pigtails and oversized glasses, for example.

Roald Dahl

In addition to the ones we’ve already mentioned, there are quite a few Dahl characters that are simple and quick to put together, but high impact. How about Mr or Mrs Twit? Messy clothes plus a wig or beard with various disgusting things attached. One of the TAs at Lu’s son’s, school went as Mrs Twit last year and looked brilliant. Or the children from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory are relatively easy to emulate. Alfie went as George from George’s Marvellous Medicine as it was his favourite book – he wore blue trousers and a red top and had a wooden spoon covered with foil and an over-sized brown plastic medicine bottle with a label round his neck.

Fantastic Mr Fox

Mr Fox is very dapper, so as long as you can pull some smart clothes from the wardrobe and team them with a fox tail an mask, you’re good to go. There’s lots of fab fox mask tutorials out there, I particularly like this one – you need a cereal pack, glue and paint.

Paddington Bear

This is what Alfie is going as this year, as he happens to have a Gloverall duffle coat in the perfect shade of royal blue. You could go down the face paint route, or grab one of those bear hats and glove sets you see everywhere and stuff the glove bits down the arms of the coat. We’re buying a cheap red hat and cutting holes for ears as we have a bear headband. You’ll also need wellies, a small suitcase and a luggage tag with ‘Please look after this bear’ written on. And, of course, marmalade sandwiches.

The Rainbow Fish

This is just ace and can be achieved in an evening. All you need is some rainbow coloured felt, shiny silver material, an old tee, an alice band and your sewing kit (although I’d be tempted to hot glue because I hot glue pretty much everything!). Have a look at the tutorial over at Here Comes The Girls and go grab some felt!

Angelina Ballerina

If you have a little ballet lover in your house, this is another easy World Book Day costume, especially if they do ballet. They need their ballet outfit, some mouse ears – just adapt the rabbit-ear tutorial above – and a long mouse-like tail. Check out our gallery to see this in action.

Any Mr Men Character

This is another one I tried to convince Lola to go as. So easy. You just need two big sheets of card to make a tabard and then trousers/tights the right colour. There are some great tutorials out there, like this Mr Bump one. Just adapt to your favourite character.

 

Do let us know what your children wear for World Book Day. We’ve put a gallery together of BG reader’s costumes for future inspiration and are keen to add to it! Email your photos to team@bambinogoodies.co.uk, upload them to our Facebook page or, if you’re a blogger, leave a link to your blog post below.