Christmas Fancy Dress 2012

Every year we get together with all of our friends on the last Saturday before Christmas Day and go on a fancy dress pub crawl around Kenilworth. This year was extra special as it's our tenth year! We started out as a small group, and others have joined or left over the years, but there still a fair few of us who have been going since the very first year. Over the ten years our lives have changed. We've even had a few baby visitors including our very own Small Person in his first year.

For the tenth year we had a theme of a 'Tenuous link'. so the character or the film your character was from had to start with one of you initials. Mine was 'The Vengeance of Fu Manchu'. Mr Bogert had 'Avengers Assemble'.

I thought I'd share a few piccies from the night:

Jessica Rabbit and 'her' brother Jareth the Goblin King

Olive Oil and her hubby Popeye

Ooompa Loompa, Storm Trooper, Plug, Jelly Fish, Blackadder, Predator, Rudolph, Sateen from Moulin Rouge, Jessica Rabbit, Poison Ivy, Popeye and Olive Oil, Beaker, Pinocchio, Jareth, Boobies, Orinocco the Womble, Corpse Bride, Tin Tin, Fu Manchu, Superman,Posh Spice, Ginger Spice, Say Puffed Marshmallow Man.

Captain America, Womble, Tin Tin and Corpse Bride.

Handing over the crown to...

... Ms Jessica Rabbit.

Cowgirl.

Scary Spice, Corpse Bride, Men in Black (Agent 'M')

Pair of Boobies!

Miss Pacman.

Captain America - AKA Mr Bogert.

Pinocchio(with his nose around his neck!) and Predator.

Ginger Spice and Posh Spice.

Blackadder and Sateen

Our friend John has organised the festivities every year, but has decided 10 is a good number to end on, so he has passed the torch to Jim (also known as Jessica this last Saturday!) to carry on, hopefully, for another 10 years. We had a great conversation about how when we're in our 80s we can all come out dressed as the latest hip young singers/actors/characters that we don't understand :D

Princess Party

Last Sunday the Small Person's birthday party finally arrived. In our wisdom (!) we chose to have it at home. Alexandra had asked for a Princess party, so that's exactly what we tried to give her.

She invited eight of her favourite friends (keeping it small, so that we could manage in our tiny shoe box house), and they all came dressed in pretty dresses or princess costumes. You can see the Royal Scroll Invitations in a previous post. Alexandra wanted to be Merida from The Brave. I made this dress the day before with a lot of help from my dressmaker Nan. I made the pattern from an existing dress and mad use of the only blue fabric I had in my stash, and some pale gold satin ribbon in my ribbon box. The only thing I had to buy was a zip. Oh, and a bow and arrow set from the pound shop. You can't have a feisty Scottish warrior type princess without some weaponry, can you? I intended to put lots of little plaits into the Small Person's hair the night before so that it would frizz up a bit - but I forgot! I was also going to make her a leather bag like Merida wears for her arrows, but ran out of time. The Smaller Person wore the well used Knights tabbard that I made a whole bunch of for the children at our wedding back in 2007. This is the one Alexandra had.

We made wands from kits I bought from Wilkinsons, then we made bracelets using elasticated thread and purple and white beads. That allowed enough time for everyone to arrive and settle in. We had booked a meal at The Oak, the pub restaurant at the bottom of our road, so an hour into the party, we put on our coats, got into pairs and paraded down the road. The Small Person's Grandma and Grandpa were at their window, and her Nana and Auntie Steph were at their window, so we gave them a royal wave and carried on our way.

We had pre-ordered the food so it was ready for us when we arrived, and Mr Bogert had popped out while we were jewellery making to decorate the table and take the cake. The most popular dinner of the day was lasagne (surprise, surprise!). Each princess had a conical hat (which I think may actually be called a henin, but don't hold me to that!) which I handmade from wallpaper samples. I also made one little crown in the same style also from wallpaper samples so that the Smller Person would have one to wear. We used sheer purple fabric with silver butterflies on for the table runner, bought princess napkins and party poppers, and special request from HRH Princess Alexandra, we had curly straws!

The cake was a cheat cake. She wanted a castle cake, but I knew I wasn't going to get it done in time. Everything for this party had been made on Friday and Saturday, because of me having too much uni work and an assignment due before that, so time was quite precious. We sang happy birthday and all had ice cream for pudding. Back into our pairs and back to our house...

Once we were settled back in at home, we played pass the parcel and then quietened down, dimmed the lights and watched Disney's Brave. we had cushions spread out all over the floor for the girls to sit or lie on. We had mini battenburg cakes and iced party ring biscuits on gold plates. We had intended to get popcorn for the girls to eat during the movie, but we had to forget something, right?

When the movie was over the girls were having a bit of boogie to the credits, then we had paper cup pinatas. After the Smaller Person's muppet party and the kermit pinata back in October, the Smaller Person really wanted a pinata too, but we had to concede that there really wasn't time to make a proper pinata, and Mr Bogert had gone as far as telling her she probably wouldn't be able to have one and that we were really sorry. At the last minute I thought about the Princess paper cups I'd bought. So they became individual pull string pinatas. Alexandra was so happy she got her pinata, even in an unusual form.

Home time (finally - this was a marathon party just to fit in the meal and the movie!) and each girl took their wands and bracelets, their princess hats, the contents of their pinata, a strawberry iced cupcake (so that I didn't have to cut the big cake yet) and a goody bag made from pink Satin with each girl's initial on. These were also made on Saturday with the help of my Nan.

The girls all seemed to have lots of fun, the Small Person was really happy (which is what counts), and other than being surrounded by a really high noise level all day (!) it wasn't too bad. The girls were all really well behaved and got on well together, even though some were from school and some were from the village, so didn't know each other). There wasn't even a big mess to clear up afterwards. Having the meal out was the best idea ever, no food preparation, no washing up, and Gayle at the Oak was really helpful.

Birthday parties over for another year, now just to get on with Christmas. Did you know I have bought absolutely NO Christmas gifts yet!? Worrying, but if I can put a Princess Party together in 2 days, I can do Christmas ;)

In a couple of future posts, I will show you how I made the cheat castle cake, the henin/cone shaped princess hats, the princess goody bags and the paper cup pinatas.

Halloween Costumes 2012

This year has been, and still is, manic. We really couldn't go in for any costumes that take a lot of time and planning. Mr Bogert has been on a bunch of foreign trips including New York and Canada this last week and just missed Hurricane Sandy. We're thinking about all those who were caught up in or affected by the superstorm, including our lovely New York friends.

I have been catching up on my course reading and activities after a horrible bug that followed on from the Smaller Person's birthday. It totally wiped me out, even when I was feeling better, I was just left really weak. Not a happy time. So I have had extension on three assignments and the new deadlines were all this week. Two have gone off into the ether to be marked, the other I just didn't have enough time, so I have made the decision not to submit. It will affect my grade, but I can't afford to fall any further behind.

So, as you can see, busy busy.

The Smaller Person recycled his sisters Pirate costume from her 4th birthday.

 

He wore his own dark blue trousers and white top, and the jacket and pirate hat from her old costume (which was a little big, but not enough to drown the poor boy). I bought a plastic pirate sword from the discount store and drew a moustache and beardy bit with my black liquid eyeliner. I tied a piece of blue fabric around his waist as a sash, and you can't see it in the photos from the actual night, but he also wore his little blue felt waistcoat that I made when he dressed up as Toad from Mario for his very first Christmas. I am amazed it fit!

The final finishing touch was the 'jabot'. I borrowed a lace edged plain hankie from my nan, folded about 1/3 of the way down (so you now have a longer flap showing below a shorter flap), I sewed a running stitch all the way across the top of the fold and pulled to gather, fixed with a couple of tacking stitches in the end and tied off. This was pinned in place with a safety pin.

He loved being a pirate and this took very little time to pull together. We were lucky enough to have the hat and jacket already, but if you don't, the hat can be substitued by a fabric bandana tied around the head, and a short waistcoat over a plain t-shirt will do just fine. If you have older clothes that can be cut, cutting zig-zags along the hem of the trousers works well. Then hold it all together with a fabric sash or scarf.

The Small Person was easier than you think to put together. She wore her own red leggings and long sleeved red t-shirt.

The skirt is made from 2.5 pieces of green felt, folded in half over a length of green bias binding (because that's what I had, ribbon would work fine) and stitched in place with a running stitch.

A slit is cut up the centre of each piece of felt as far as the stitching, so you are left with 5 flaps. If your child is bigger, use 3 full pieces of felt and you will finish with 6 flaps.

She is wearing my thick white gloves which have a cartoony look because they are so big. I bought a plain white 'velvet' mask from Wilkinsons. I tied the elastic in place and had the Small Person try it on so that I could draw Marvin's eyes in place with pencil.

Once they were drawn, I coloured the entire area with black marker. This covered the area without losing the velvet feel.

Mr Bogert was the master helmet and laster gun creator. The laser gun was made first from an empty cereal box, some corrugated card and a sheet of rolled up card. It was all stuck together with lots of masking tape.

 

He followed an image online to give him some sort of idea. He began spraying the whole thing with gold spray paint, but unfortunately the can ran out before he covered one of the sides. I finished it on Halloween afternoon by glueing gold tissue paper to the parts that were still to be covered.

The helmet began with strips of thin card, one around the whole head (like a crown) then cross pieces to form the crown of the helmet, again taped with masking tape.

The visor was cut from corrugated card and the ear flaps (technical name?) from more thin card.

Mr Bogert rolled a thin piece of card for the spike on top, and originally taped a small brush to it, but it didn't hold (too heavy). He began painting the whole thing with the only green paint we had: this awful watery green poster paint in a paint pen. As you can imagine,  the coverage wasn't great, so I covered the whole thing with green tissue paper today after I finished the laser gun.

I also made a block from gold card and stuck this in place on top of the spike. It had to be dried on the radiator to be dry enough to wear for trick or treating, but we did it - and I think she look fab!

I wanted to paint the skin around her eyes with white face paint so that her skin wouldn't show through the eye holes, but I couldn't find it, but you can imagine how it would have looked if I had!

We had a great time, and I've promised that next year, because I wont be as study heavy, they can pick something more complicated and time consuming and I will make it! This time next year I'll be cursing hasty promises ;D

It's our Village bonfire tomorrow night and we're all looking forward to Guy Fawkes night here in the UK. I hope if you're in the UK you've got something fun planned!