Sophie's Last Minute Book Character Parade Costume

When it comes to resourcefulness and creativity, nothing brings out these qualities faster from a mother than her child who has an activity or requirement at school and there's no time or budget to go out and buy.

Yes, that's what happened to me when I read in my youngest's school diary that they were having a Book Character Parade the following week...and only remembering that she still didn't have a costume two days before the actual activity would take place.  Aacckk!

Although the note said that students didn't have to participate, of course I wanted Sophie to join.  After all, she's a kid; and most probably, majority (if not all) of her classmates would be in costumes.  I didn't want her to feel left out just because we forgot to prepare one for her.

We did already have costumes though (given by one of Hubby's sisters when they visited last year), but they were Elsa and Anna, and those were movie characters, not from books.  Sure Disney probably published Frozen books when the film was released, but I wanted Sophie to dress up as someone who originated from a book.  Yes, I know the movie was based on The Snow Queen fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen, but the original characters were not named Elsa and Anna; I'm not even sure if the snow queen actually had a sister.  Anyway, I digress.

So I did what I had to do and rolled up my sleeves to prepare myself for some DIY-ing.  Of course the first thing I did was consult reliable Mr. Google.  Then I asked Caila and Sophie to bring out their story books (the ones that were still in one piece and didn't have scribbles, at least).  And finally, I looked through the  clothes Sophie had.  Once I figured out what could be put together and who she could be, I printed the character's face on paper, glued it on a disposable plate (because I couldn't find any cardboard lying around), and attached a barbeque stick at the back for her to use as a mask if she wanted to.

The result was this:

our little Lola (of Charlie & Lola)

I know it's not a popular choice because not everyone knows who Charlie and Lola are.  To be honest, I only discovered them around 4 or 5 years ago when we bought their story collection set for Caila.  But it was a very, very easy costume to put together, and the best thing about it was we didn't have to shell out a single fil.  In this particular story book that we based the costume on, Charlie, Lola and her friend go to the park in clothes kids would normally wear on a typical autumn day.  Fortunately, Sophie had all of those in almost the same color as Lola. 

However, to make sure people wouldn't question her costume authenticity as a book character (hahaha!), I told her to bring the book with her as proof ☺

On the day of the parade at school, there was a Little Red Riding Hood, Peter Pan, Snow White, pirates, fairies and so many other story book characters.  Of course there were also a lot of kids wearing costumes of superheroes, animals, and people from movies and everyone knew immediately who they were.    

As for Sophie, I'm sure many people didn't know who she was supposed to be.  Some parents or teachers may have probably initially thought we couldn't get her a proper costume and sent her to school in normal clothes just so that she could join the parade.  Honestly, I couldn't care less.

What's important for me was that my daughter was a book character.  Because in my opinion, that's what the Book Character Parade was all about.  And I'm glad we were able to pull together something that both of us were happy with in such a short time without having to spend any money.

Please don't think I have anything against those parents whose kids went to school in movie character costumes.  I honestly don't.  For all I know, the parade was just a fun activity to allow kids to dress up.  I guess I'm just a stickler for following instructions ☺