book week 2011

may i present - triple j as astronaut piggy wiggy.....

taken this morning before she headed off to school!!

book week can be a real bugger for parents of smaller kids.
what book to pick?? - what to wear?? - how much is it all going to cost???
are there going to be a million princesses and 2 million harry potters????? (yes - i spied a few at drop offs this morning!!!)
and book week always falls in winter here - so skimpy outfits are a no go as they freeze their butts off!!!!

at triple j's school, book week to a huge deal - it has been ever since the school opened in 2002 (the year triple j was born - and goob was in year 1)
they've always had great librarians at the school and all the staff get into the dress-ups - so it is a great event for everyone. 
but - yes - it can be stressful on a household that is already super duper busy.

this year triple j chose to recycle an outfit which eky thought of and wore last year (yay says me!!) - based on the book astronaut piggy wiggy by christyan and diane fox - here's a link to the book on amazon.....

we have a well stocked dress-up trunk that has been added to many times over the years.
i've made some outfits - and some have been store bought.

this year's outfit is a mix of a store bought piggy outfit (picked up cheap about 5 years ago from spartys - the party shop which is part of spotlight) - teamed with a costume i put together 5-6 years ago for goob for a project presentation on neil armstrong.

for the astronaut outfit - i picked up a cheap disposable all-in-one painting suit from bunnings and i internet searched, printed out and stuck on logos from nasa/u.s. flag/apollo one mission - and printed off an armstrong name tag. (yep - they're all paper stuck on with glue!!)
and - it's lasted this long!!!!

triple j is actually wearing the pig suit under the astronaut suit - so we cut a small hole so that the important piggy tail could stick through.....

we teamed the outfit with a cheap plastic fish bowl - for an astronaut's helmet.....(this has never been a fish bowl - it lives in our dress up trunk)....it's all about the accessories!!!.....

here are the astronaut badges.....(a little crumpled - as i said - this has had 5-6 years of wear!! - but they've stayed on).....

and here's her piggy wiggy head.....

all kids had to bring along a bag with the book cover on the outside - inside they had to have 5-6 items which represented the book.....

not super flash (as far as outfits go) - but triple j was so excited in her outfit this morning - and ultimately that's all that mattered.
can i also say - that years of dress-ups have paid off.
we have a great stash now and my girls now work together on outfits (it helps now that my oldest is 15!) they try to find things that we already have before we have to go out and buy anything new.

triple j has 3 more years left at primary school - i wonder what she'll be wearing next year?!?!?!
(it would probably help if we didn't always leave the costume picking to the last minute!!)

apologies for the lack of posts of late.
semester 2 at uni has just started back - and i've had goob and eky home all week - really sick with bad coughs.
let's hope the warmer spring weather stays - and all lurgies leave this house for good. (oh - all fingers and toes are crossed!!)

hope things are well in your part of the world.
hugz from here.
cheryl xox.