TARDIS Tuesday: Sarah Jane Smith: The Gift

 I've worn TARDIS Tuesday outfits for the past few weeks but again, failed to photograph them so I'm glad to share one today which is a first appearance, Remember back in August, I posted that I'd seen some Doctor Who costumes at the Queen's Hall in Hexham and had got in touch with the costume owner to see if he had an ID on any of the items.

Well, he finally got back to me in October (after a second pestering email!) to say that the tops were both from Marks and Spencer.  

She wears the tops with French Connection jeans and some toe bar sandals which look a bit like Birkenstocks but who know s where they are from!

Images all screenshots from

 https://sjscloset.livejournal.com/20074.html 

Here's my picture from August:

I searched on Vinted for a couple of weeks, finally realising that it doesn't allow you to view more than 500 posts at a time so restricted the number by price AND material and finally found the screen accurate blouse and an alt vest-top (the product code is not the same!)

It was a tense couple of weeks as when finally my Vinted parcel arrived to my local parcel shop, the seller got in touch to say Yodel had muddled up two of her parcels and someone else had my blouse!  She asked me NOT to collect it so it would be sent back but it took at least 3 weeks until it turned back up at her house and I was fretting!  She then sent it to me by Royal Mail and it took 10 days to reach me!

Here I am in the blouse and vest top today! Worn with a pair of my Yaz Khan jeans (not SA)

I wore this whilst CBC and I went out to go and pick up some presents AND a new kettle as last night, I was cooking oven roasted veg and disaster struck! I boiled a kettle  and all of a sudden, all the lights went out in the kitchen. Weirdly, the oven and hob still stayed on but everything else was out!

I finished cooking and we ate dinner and CBC tried to reset the MCB.  It didn't work so I texted my lovely neighbour Martyn who manages to solve and help with absolutely every house/machine disaster we've had!!! He texted and then came round to show us there is a secondary Earth MCB which had tripped because the kettle had died.  Luckily, this morning, we were able to have tea as I also have a lovely stove-top kettle.

By weird coincidence. I discovered that the man who helped me with the costume ID and who owns the screen worn costume was actually a great cousin of my Godmother's husband and I own a book he wrote and my Godmother is spending Christmas with his Grandmother!

CBC just made some delicious potato, carrot and leek soup for us for dinner and we had an amazing fried breakfast this morning! We've tidied and cleaned lots of the house which is good as it was a disaster, annoyingly, as I had tidied and cleaned all the downstairs last weekend and C had wrecked the kitchen cooking for his college course Christmas dinner and for various other reasons!

(head back tomorrow for my annual Christmas song!)

World Book Day Costume 2025

Hello!

Yesterday, in my World book day poem post, I mentioned that our theme for World Book Day this year was Fairy tales/folk tales/traditional tales, possibly with a twist!

Here's my costume:

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Our new English lead wanted some ideas of what we could suggest the children could dress as that wouldn't cost them anything.

I suggested the children make some sort of cardboard tabard or sandwich board to wear.  It could be a setting image, a book cover, a character or an item from a folk tale.

I gave her two examples I made of a Gingerbread house and a ladybird.

Here is the tabard I made

One side is the pumpkin (and that's my wand for the fairy godmother- this was made for a choir concert about 5 years ago)

The other side is the coach that the pumpkin turns into!

My dress is actually one of my wedding dresses- bought on eBay in 2012 from Vivien of Holloway originally. It still fits, 12 years later!

I WAS going to wear my silver glittery shoes and a tiara but I had such a headache today, I couldn't face it. I was hypersensitive to smells today- everyone's room made me reel with artificial smells and cleaning products! I got through the day though.  Just wore my blue boots!

I also made another tabard example from The Hare and the Tortoise:

It is also double-sided:

 I had fun making these.

L, a year 3 teacher was dressed as Prince Charming- we had a photo together.

A, the English lead was dressed as Rumaysa, who is a retelling of Rapunzel but who uses her hijab to escape from the tower she is trapped in, instead of being rescued by a prince. She then helps other female characters to escape their own fates!  It's a great story! She looked amazing and she had 3 light pink scarves plaited and attached to her hijab and added flowers to it- she looked so beautiful!

A girl in her class, who I lent my copy of Rumaysa to, also came as Rumaysa and had made herself a tabard of the book cover- it was marvellous!

There was a brilliant child dressed as the Gingerbread man- a massive cardboard face!  

There were some other brilliant ones!

I loved Dog in Boots, one of my choir boys came dressed as an alternative version of Puss in Boots. 

The office staff came as The three little wolves and the big bad pig. This is a real book and is really funny!

There were a myriad Red Riding Hoods, Little Red Riding Hoodie, Little Red Running Shorts.

The three little minions (who I told they had to write the story to go with it and they did!) 

It is always such good fun to see the children!

xx

World Book Day 2024 Costume

Hello there!

I hope you are well!

Finally managed to get around to getting the photos of my World Book Day outfit from my work colleague!

Remember, I told you my school was donning PJs or World Book Day.

I was very disappointed to say the least as was one of my lovely pupils!

I decided I could get round this.

I remember illustrations from JM Barrie's Peter Pan depict Wendy and her siblings in long white cotton night shirts and gown.

I also knew that I had my Mum's white cotton full-length nightgown from when she was one of the Major General's daughters in The Pirates of Penzance.

So, I donned this nightgown on a Thursday at school. Sadly, I decided it was a bit too wafty and nippy to wear on the train to work (much as I delight in the bemused side-eye from commuters when I sit there in costume) so I had to change on my way. I wore my Avid Reader's Book club sweatshirt from Joanie on the way.

I thought carefully about my accessories.

You might be able to spot the anchors on my white ballet pumps- a nod to the nautical setting for the story. Sadly, it's probably their last outing as the sole of one shoe had broken apart and disintegrated. There were bits of my shoe everywhere.

My hair got totally messed up in the wind but I added my purple Lady-tie bow into my hair.

Tinkerbell made an appearance!!! I decided to add this brooch as a nod to my character....even though Tink doesn't like Wendy!

 Did people recognise who I was?

Some of the kids thought I was a ghost, one colleague thought I was Jesus, a few weren't sure, several admired my lovely summer dress and yes, a few knew I was Wendy!

Would you have realised who I was?

I managed to incorporate World Book Day into my singing assemblies that week.

Either the Schools Musicals company or Out of the Ark had 2 free songs available on the theme which I taught to the children.  I also played the William Tell overture to KS2 and told them the story of William Tell and played the story of The Noon day witch by Dvorak to KS1.

Oh, by the way...

My choir got through to the final of my local area's Primary Year of the Year competition.

We were one of 6 schools chosen out of  the 24 who entered!  My choir were EUPHORIC to find out on Tuesday as was I!

Now, I have 3 rehearsals to get them ready for the final!

xx

World Book Day costume 2022

It was that time of year again yesterday, where schools across the country hosted dress up days to dress up as a character from a book of some sort. I was pleased my school sent out a message asking parents to try and use things they had already rather than worrying about going out to buy special costumes.  I did see some lovely creativity yesterday.

This year, I didn't have a clear idea of who or what I wanted to be until last Saturday morning where I decided I wanted to be Robin Hood!

I knew I needed a costume consisting of green and brown garments.

Firstly, I started with gathering some green and brown leggings I have-either pair would work for my bottom half but it would depend what shade of green I was to wear on my top half that would determine which pair would get the job.  All my green dresses and garments weren't really suitable- I knew I needed a sort of tunic and everything I had was too short or two frilly/modern-looking!

I headed to my local charity shop on Saturday morning to see if there was any suitable green garment or jacket of any sort but there was nothing suitable and we were heading off to Oxford to my Mother-in-Law's birthday party so I only had time to visit the one.  I DID, however, pick up a dark green, fake leather bag that would work as a quiver for my arrows!

Chatting to my Mum on the phone, she suddenly realised, she had an old, large green t-shirt of my StepDad's that she had chopped the sleeves off which might work and after she sent me a picture, I concurred so she kindly posted it to me to arrive for Monday!

When it arrived, I tried wearing it over the top of the brown linen shirt I've worn for my Clara and Missy cosplays and it worked well. To belt it, I wore my Mum's old brown leather belt I acquired a few years ago.  CBC decided that the green leggings were totally the wrong shades so I went with the brown and paired them with my dark green Ralph Lauren knee-high leather boots.

Tuesday night, in school, I had a frantic search for my Bow (alas, no arrows) which, in the whole upheaval of not being in my music room, had got buried.  Thankfully, I found it. I bought this from Hever Castle an age ago.

I intended to make myself a hat out of green felt or funky foam but the sized pieces I had were too small and I suddenly thought of a Monsoon green wool hat I have- perhaps I could safety pin the edges to the crown.  After a few false attempts, this was successful. I finally made a red paper feather to tuck in.

Wednesday night saw me cutting up a cardboard box into 10 arrows (I cut 20 cardboard strips and 20 triangles and used paper tape to stick these together and staples for the points, plus I fringed the ends.  At the last minute, I made a small dagger too.

One last minute idea was to add a small black velvet jewellery pouch to my belt.  I also compiled two bags of chocolate coins that CBC and I had received belatedly for Christmas from his sister on Saturday and I put them into a small hand-tooled green leather handbag I have (not pictured)

All day at school, the younger kids kept thinking I was Peter Pan though the older ones realised I was Robin Hood.

The costumes of other staff members were really good.

In year 6, they all dressed as characters from Louis Sachar's Holes book, which they are currently reading.

In Year 5, they dressed as Alice characters- a white rabbit and 3 cards.

In year 4, only one member of staff was in and she dressed as George from George's Marvellous medicine (I suggested this to her as she wasn't sure what to do by herself!) 

In year 3, they all dressed as crayons as they have been reading, The Day the crayons came home.

In Year 2, they are reading The Twits, so they all came as different characters- there were 2 Mrs Twits and 1 Mr Twit and a Roly-poly bird (the PGCE student who had to do an observation with her tutor dressed like that). I was pleased as I helped her and she wore lots of my chiffon scarves (the ones I wore for my Rainbow Fish costume) attached to her skirt.  Also the other teacher was Fantastic Mr Fox.

IN year 1, the majority of staff dressed as The Grumpiest Ladybird plus one Witch.

SLT dressed as Willy Wonka characters with our Headteacher in the most exquisite Willy Wonka costume, made by his other-half.  He also took my suggestion to give out Wonka bars as prizes!

There were 4 Oompa Lumpas -the Deputy and Assistant Heads and then the School Business manager wore a handmade Golden Ticket dress.

I even managed to recruit myself a Maid Marion- one of the lovely TAs didn't have a costume and was very busy and I offered her my charity-shopped purple dress I wore as Guinevere in 2012.  I have covered her face here as I don't have her permission to use the picture and I don't really like telling people about my blog! She looked so pretty in it though!

Of course, I went to school dressed like this AND up to London to my Gamelan rehearsal.  I love freaking out business people and teenagers on the train when I dress in a funny manner!  It was an incredibly comfortable costume and the only purchase was my green bag which I may redonate again.

It's so fun to come up with a costume and I can't wait for next year to try and think of a new costume with things I've already got!

What would you wear as a book character?

I quite fancy dressing up as Saucepan man from The Magic Faraway tree next year. It would be easy to make lots of cardboard saucepans and string them up all over myself!

xx

World Book Day Costumes 2021

 My school decided to postpone our World Book Day celebrations till today so the children were in school. The main reason was because we had a Zoom date with Michael Rosen, the wonderful children's author and poet.

This year, I decided to make one of my ideas that I have listed in my 'World Book Day costume ideas' blogpost but never actually made.

My inspiration was The Rainbow Fish from the above book.

It has a wonderful moral about not being proud and sharing your riches with others and is really beautiful!

As always, I want to make my costume from things I already have- I've only ever bought tiny items for my World Book Day costumes and used things that can go back to their regular use afterwards.

I started by knowing I wanted to use some of my craft felt stash to make coloured fish scales.  I found this turquoise top in my charity bag. It's too tight (and too low cut) and so I was going to get rid of it so I decided to give it a makeover.

I cut a template from a coaster and cut various scallops from the appropriately-coloured felt.

I sewed them roughly to the top.

Unfortunately, when I tried it on, because it was so tight, some of the threads pulled and broke.

I tried to sew them back on and hoped for the best.

Next, I wanted to make some fins so I had brought home some chiffon scarves that I use at school for music and movement with the year 1 children.  I got an old pair of pants of CBC's (they were in a cull bag) and I cut the cotton material off and left myself with the blue waistband. I tied 6 different scarves to that so they would dangle.

I laid these out on top of a blue petticoat that my sister bought me about 6 years ago and decided I needed more fins, perhaps from my shoulders so I took 3 chiffon scarves in 3 colours and tied them with a knot and I tied them onto large safetypins which I attached to the shoulders.

I made one more which I decided I would attach to my ponytail in the morning.

When I got up in the morning, I donned a blue top and leggings and a blue skirt to make the journey to school and put everything on when I got there.

The final touches were to dust my face with shimmery eye-shadow and I added my new GoryDorky necklace which my sister bought me for my birthday. It looks like soap suds but I decided to don it to represent the final glittery scale that the Rainbow fish has left after he's donated all his beautiful shimmery scales to the other fish.

And the final touch was my Nickat irridescent bubble earrings.

The children that knew the story recognised me instantly.  A few thought I was a mermaid or a princess.

It was a hard outfit to wear on a windy day- my scarves went everywhere!

However, that's not the end of things I made this year.

I decided to bite the bullet and make a few examples of simple costumes that could be made out of cardboard.

The first was a Wardrobe!

For a Narnian theme.  I was going to make some optional face masks to hang off it for a white witch and a lion but I ran out of time. I still have a wardrobe.

Next, I used an old pizza box (a supermarket one) and I painted a Gingerbread house that could be worn for a simple Hansel and Gretel-themed costume, either alone or with another costume, e.g. witch, lederhosen, dirndl etc. I added string to the top.

The next costume I made was a simple Ladybird costume which could be easily put onto a child should they need a costume. It actually ended up being used by my Deputy Head Teacher.

I had a pair of cardboard pizza bases which were relatively clean so I painted them red during a staff meeting. I then drew black spots on them in a marker.

I then hole-punched the tops to make them into a tabard.

The final touch was (if worn with all black), a head-dress made from red card and some wire from a floral decoration which I bent into antennae

My final contribution to the day was to help Year 3 teachers.

They were all going to come in wearing all black (boring) but didn't know what book to go with. I suspected they were the character of The Dark from the book by Lemony Snicket.

The Dark is personified and Lazlo, the little boy in the book, is really scared of it as he goes through the dark house with his torch.  The dark keeps talking as he goes and in the end, he realises, the dark can actually be our friend.

They were all entranced with the idea.  To help, I printed 3 mini copies of the book for them to hang round their necks with string and I made them all torches out of card too.

Other great costumes included all of Year 2 who came as Oliver Jeffers' The Crayons, a full blown Gruffalo, Year 5 as Willy Wonka characters, Year 6 as characters from Holes (Louis Sachar). Year 4 are studying the book Varmints at the moment and all came in adorable Varmints costumes with ears, noses and bunny ears!

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World Book Day outfit 2019- Newt Scamander from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find them

This year, my World Book Day costume comes from a book within a book.  In Harry Potter, Harry receives a list of the books he is required to buy for his Hogwarts studies including a book called Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find them.  Back a long time ago, JK Rowling actually wrote her own book for Comic Relief (or was it Children in Need) as it if it was written by Newt. I remember buying it and reading it.

IMage borrowed from Radiotimes.com

Now, in the last couple of years, the Harry Potter franchise has created films about the character Newt Scamander and his adventures looking for animals.   CBC had to dress up last year for Harry Potter night at his school as Newt Scamander and he dutifully put together a costume for it.  I declared at that point, that my World Book Day character was already sorted.

IMage borrowed from Aimshop.dk

And here's me!

 CBC bought the turquoise coat, the tan waistcoat and the scarf from various websites.

I'm wearing my own pair of tweedy trousers, white shirt and men's brown brogue shoes.

If you can see a green creature attached to my lapel, that is a Bowtruckle which my Mum crocheted for CBC last year.  He's super cute.

The suitcase came from Sarah Nelson Gingerbread in Grasmere and we filled it with various animals including

Ones we already owned:  Owl, Fox, Squirrel, Foxsquirrel, Crab

Bought for 1 sickle a piece at Harry Potter night:  Another Bowtruckle, 2 Nifflers, 1 Pygmy Puff.

It was great fun to get dressed up like this and I found the sideways glances on the train amusing!

Lots of the children at school knew who I was straight away. Others, mainly younger, were not sure.  It was fun opening up my case and sharing the animals with the children.

Lots of the other teachers made a great effort. Other costumes included:  Wizard of Oz Year 5: 2 witches, 1 Lion, 1 Dorothy, 1 Scarecrow, How to train your dragon Year 4:  Hiccup the Viking and Toothless,  Year 6: Alice in Wonderland: Queen of Hearts, Alice (wearing my dress), Mad Hatter, White Rabbit; Year 2: Snow White x 2, SMT:  Peter Pan and Tinkerbell, 

I'd love to know if you dressed up and what you were?

x

TARDIS Tuesday- Romana from City of Death

Hi there!

I hope that you are well.  I am fine!  Today, I am sharing a dress up/costume/cosplay which is from one of my all time favourite classic Doctor Who episodes! 
City of Death is a highly entertaining episode from Tom Baker's tenure. It features my favourite Classic Who companion Romanavoratredelundar or Romana for short or Fred!
In this episode, the Doctor deals with Scaroth, an alien who crashlanded on Earth at the very beginning of Earth which kick starts the beginning of human life, so it is like the catalyst to life.  But Scaroth is splinted through time as it happens and he longs to be whole again. So, he's managed to get one of his time splinters to get Leonardo Da Vinci to paint 6 copies of the Mona Lisa so he can raise money to create some sort of time machine. Or something like that. It's around 12 years since I last saw it!


Romana is sporting a very costumey outfit that looks like one of the Chalet School or Malory Towers girls on a school trip out!

Image borrowed from The Radio Times

Image borrowed from Bradley Basement

Image borrowed from Bradley Basement

I've had most of the components of this outfit, or rather, a variation on it but I lacked one element really...the red tie!

Here's my outfit. It's navy blue, rather than black but what's a shade of difference amongst friends.

I'll start with the dress.  I bought this a good few years ago from a shop called Kush clothing near my old childhood home which stocked Closet London dresses.    When they were closing down, they sold the dresses super cheap! I picked up this navy Pinafore dress for either £5 or £10, I forget which!

The shirt, I have also had for a good few years bought from ASOS as I had a voucher and didn't know what to by but I've barely worn it as it didn't fit me very well and I didn't really like the way it looks but stupidly forgot to return it. I kept it though, meaning to customize it or sell it.    Either I've put on weight since buying (I have) or it's the fact it is under a Pinafore but I rather like the way it looks here.

 The white tights are incredibly old and they were a pair of my Mum's ballet tights from about 20-30 years ago or so perhaps.  They don't fit me very well as my legs are longer than hers and my waist is a bit small for them so I have to hold them up with shorts) but I've kept them as they are good for costumes.

My red shoes are also at least 5 if not 8 years old from Red or Dead in the Sale from Schuh. One of Buckles has broken off sort of but I can still wear them.

Penultimately, the hat belonged to my Nan and I found it when we cleared out hers and Grandad's house and laid claim to it instantly. Apparently, she bought it from the Redbridge show back in the 90's when it was unexpectedly too hot!

So, the only relatively new item in the outfit is the red tie.
Well, when we cleared out WOMOTM's house, as I alluded to in last week's TARDIS Tuesday, I snaffled his vintage tie collection as no one else who was able to get there wanted them. The red tie was the one I mainly wanted for this outfit.

To complete this outfit, I need to make a sweetie brooch and maybe add a removable School badge but I am not sure I'll bother- that makes it just that bit TOO costumey!

What do you think?

xx

Something beginning with S part 2...

***Before the main point, I spoke to Y this morning and she did go home and listen to Hildegard Von Bingen and said it DID help her sleep!  Hurrah!***

If you read my last post, you will see I was invited to a dress up party where the theme was 'Something beginning with S.'

Did you guess which outfit I chose?

So....I chose SPACE as my 'S' with some other Sub-categories of S within the outfit.

Stage no.1:

Go through extensive 'Novelty Tat' jewellery collection and collect anything with a sort of SPACE theme... goodness, I have a lot!

Stage no. 2: 

Fetch silvery/space footwear choices:

Silver sparkly welly boots bought in Charity shop with Mum last week.  Also grab Hush Puppies silver heels just in case feet get sweaty...

Stage no. 3:

Fetch main garment:  Galaxy space dress from Red Herring at Debenhams bought delightedly in sale from Debenhams around 3-4 years ago.

Grab charity-shopped  Silver Sparkly shoulder bag.

Fetch Sparkly gold Crown and Glory head-dress to represent the Sun as the centre of the Solar System

Stage No. 4:

Fetch garments for warmth.
Silver Sparkly Topshop jacket from charity shop and Silver sparkly leggings also from charity shop.

Stage no. 5:

Attach brooches to jacket.

Stage No. 6:

Straighten hair

Stage no. 7:

Add Sun halo and Star earrings and Space ship necklace.


Stage No. 7:

Don jacket featuring:

• Sputnik
• Geordie La Forge from Star Trek
• BB8 from Star Wars
• Saturn
• Other Spheres.
• Others without S

Stage no. 8:
Stand, smile and pose for the snap!

And would you like to see CBC's costume?

Yes, he is the Swimmer being attacked by a Shark!

What do you reckon?

If you were going to an S party what would your ideal costume be if you could get it/make it?  What would you costume be like me, that came from your own wardrobe?

xx

P.S.  How many S's are there in this post?