Disney Day: A Repost

Friday October 10th 2008

I have outdone myself and have managed a feat any parent would be proud of. I have made myself seem some sort of earth mother.

Today, after weeks of build up and anticipation, was Disney day at school. Lessons were done around Disney-fied topics, the canteen food was all cartoon themed, and everyone, teachers included, had to dress up as Disney characters. And because I wanted to prove that even though I have continually lost letters, forgotten non-uniform days and repeatedly needed to be reminded of important events, I am not the worst mother ever Turtle had asked, I decided we could make our own costumes. That’s right, even though we have at our disposal in our dressing box enough pre-made items to make a Lion King, a Woody, and a Mr Incredible, I decided to go with his request and attempt to make a Wall-E from scratch. I asked Scooby who he wanted to be and he said Goofy.

‘Are you sure? Don’t you want to be something cool like Buzz Lightyear or Lightening McQueen?’

‘No, I want to be Goofy because ee’s funny and he dances like dis (mini demonstration) and says “Gawrsh!”’

‘Okay…’

And for Crash, I pretty much made the decision myself as he is prone to change his mind every couple of hours and chose a character from his favourite film – Monsters Inc.

So I spent Thursday trawling through Morecambe’s indoor market, trying to find thick elastic, superglue, fluffy blue material and plastic teeth, and I was pretty successful too (even if I did have to buy two fluffy blue dog toys so I could rip them apart and use their pelt as shoe covers).

Then I spent most of Thursday night, through to the wee hours of Friday, putting it all together. I have to admit that compared to the other kids in their official Disney Princess and Pirates of the Caribbean costumes, they did look a bit shabby. But you know what? I’m so glad I did it. When I showed them the pieces I had for their costumes last night, they were so excited. Turtle by himself took the initiative to colour the cardboard box we were using for Wall-E, and the other two joined in, crayoning the sides and the wheels. They loved it, and before they went to bed, we laid out all the things on the floor in the lounge. Then in the morning, hey presto! There were three ready-made costumes and I’ve never seen them get ready for school faster so they could get them on. It was a bit like Christmas (and anything Christmas-like makes me feel very happy ).

And, not that I want to brag or anything, you know, but AHEM they did get honourable mention in assembly in front of the rest of the school. I don’t think any other bigger families had been crazy brave enough to try and make their own.

So here are the finished results:

Sully, Wall-E and Goofy (although if you didn't know that before I told you, I obviously haven't done a very good job!)


I could probably work out how to rotate this, but I'm tired and I can't be bothered.


Please notice the fine workmanship of the two-fingered gloves and the fact that the staples on the elastic held out till only 20 minutes before I went to pick him up.



My Goofy boy. Again with the non-rotation - sorry.


Thankfully we already had this hat - I just had to make and attach the ears.


He wore a pair of my shoes over his own shoes to get the slopey walk. I told him he should take the top shoes off for play time so he wouldn't fall over, but he assured me he could and would run in them and proceeded to lollop around the house to show me how.



My favourite blue jumper with purple spots added made a good body for Crash's costume. Halloween is a good time to get pointy plastic teeth.


Part of the decimated fluffy dogs, wrapped around a headband with silvery points (conveniently stuffed with the dogs' innards - don't share any of this with the children, will you?)


I ran out of carcass fluff to cover the whole shoes.


The whole happy crew. I made them, and their costumes too.