I was aware of World Book Day before having E (I had a colleague who always went all out at making his kids’ amazing outfits) but last year I unexpectedly found out about it whilst standing in the nursery line for pick up. One of the staff was telling another parent that it was World Book Day the next day and the kids could dress up if they liked.
I wondered whether we should give it a miss that year but I do like fancy dress and getting crafty so thought I would try and come up with something.

We went home and I looked through his bookshelf, trying to work out what characters from some of his favourite books we might be able to recreate at short notice.
I figured Owl babies could be a good option and i could raid my felt stash to create a feathery cape.
I cut out a circular cape shape and a bunch of different coloured ovals and quickly sewed them along with a tie.

I wondered if I could do some kind of head piece and sewed up the top of a fleece snood to make an adjustable hat.
I drew out a design for the face and my husband and I cut out the pieces and glue gunned them to the fabric (i would normally hand  stitch but it was close to midnight at this point!)

In the morning, we showed E the cape, hat and had laid out his book with a little toy owl.
“Do you want to put it on and be an owl?” I asked
“No mama!”
We managed to subtly put it on as we read him the book but it was swiftly whipped off as soon as he realised!!

He’s since gotten a bit more keen on ‘dressing up’, often insisting on wearing his swim vest to breakfast!
With a bit more notice this year I wondered what we could that he’d be keen on.
He has a lion ear headband and tail that he got during a trip to Blairdrummond Safari park and a few of his favourite books have lion characters so I asked him if he wanted to be a Lion.
“Raaaaaarrrr!” He responded
Job done. With the ears and tail sorted, I thought it would be nice to have some fleecy brown leggings and a top. I had a quick look on Minerva and found a discounted 0.9m of fur brown teddy fabric. I ordered and they emailed to saw it was actually not in a complete 0.9m but in 3 pieces and was that ok. It was really cheap and I figured it was just for a costume so would hopefully manage to get full garments from it without having to patchwork it together.

I had previously bought some kids patterns from Flora Child, who i follow on Instagram. I’ve been meaning to make some nice summer clother for E so thought this would be a good opportunity to test the patterns.
I printed off the Moss Tee (raglan style tshirt) in age 3-4 (he’s a very tall 2.5 year old!) and the Sage Pants  (trousers) in the same size.
I had just enough fabric but skipped the pockets on both the trousers and the top.
The instructions were great- simple and easy to understand and I managed to sew up both quickly one evening and finished them off the following night once I had tried the trousers on for size to get the correct fit for the elastic waist band.

To finish it all off, I used some yellow and brown wool to crochet a mane and attached to his headband.

I’m really happy with how they turned out and E was excited to put his costume on, ready to show his pals at nursery. Turn out he’s more receptive to dressing up when it’s a fierce Lion than a cute little baby Owl!