Quick DIY fancy dress costumes???

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MagicMelon

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So our Batman & Robin costume yesterday wasnt placed very highly, the next little show is next weekend at the same venue so it needs to be something we can quickly make up as we dont have long. Rider is a very small boy so it cant be girly (which makes it trickier as girl stuff seems easier with big dresses etc.!). Ideas please!!
 
Paint pony (and possibly also child) as a skeleton. White paint on a dark pony; dark paint on a white pony. And when I say paint I mean the washable stuff you give toddlers to paint with. Anything else stains! (Bitter experience). Skeletons always place well because they are so difficult to do well. And hope it doesn't rain....

If you can't so a skeleton do a spider web and send him as spider man.
 
MagicMelon said:
So our Batman & Robin costume yesterday wasnt placed very highly, the next little show is next weekend at the same venue so it needs to be something we can quickly make up as we dont have long. Rider is a very small boy so it cant be girly (which makes it trickier as girl stuff seems easier with big dresses etc.!). Ideas please!!
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Judging Fancy Dress is always a nightmare, so it is very likely that the rosettes were awarded accordig to how much work/originality/ child's input went into the costume, which might mean that simple won't do. On the other hand, if the same competitors regularly go to the same venue, it might just be that the organisers like the children to take turns withthe rosettes. There is an awful lot that goes into decisions about children's classes, to try to avboid tears/tantrums.
 
take one old sheet, paint as a wall, use two garden canes sew in side so that when it hangs either side of the saddle when you drape over the pony the wall drops straight down. take one beach ball paint white with eyes and attach a couple of legs and the sew this on to the sheet. dress owner as a soldier and you have humpty dumpty and one of the kings solders. the sheet with garden canes works well with other designs.
 
Paint hand prints and symbols on the pony (or on a sheet/lycra if you'd prefer not to paint onto pony, though as mentioned above, water based toddler paints are usually safe. Test a small bit first). Take noseband off pony's bridle. Give pony feather headdress.

Dress child as native American Indian with feathers on hat and loose trousers cut with raggedy bottoms etc. Maybe a toy bow and arrow. Teach child to make an Indian call! (And pony not to be scared of it!)

Quick tip - brush dry paint off the pony rather than wash off. Washing smears the paint and pony will be tinted!
 
Wow all great ideas here - thank you! These should keep us going for next few shows ;) (but keep them coming if anyone has any others!). Pony is only a 5yo but seemed perfectly happy in a hood, long socks and flapping cape yesterday ;) My main problem is trying to talk my nearly 4yo son into these ideas as all he goes on about are superheroes :(
 
MagicMelon said:
Wow all great ideas here - thank you! These should keep us going for next few shows ;) (but keep them coming if anyone has any others!). Pony is only a 5yo but seemed perfectly happy in a hood, long socks and flapping cape yesterday ;) My main problem is trying to talk my nearly 4yo son into these ideas as all he goes on about are superheroes :(
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I did a little bit of googling, and saw this (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v416/prettyboxergirl/DSCN5381.jpg) which is a bit of an alternative take on a superhero and would probably be easy enough to do something similar if you could get a sheet to paint on and a hood to match the sheet colour for the pony. You could paint the sheet so at the bottom it's got the tops of skyscrapers and looks like the sky, and have your son dressed as superman/another flying superhero and give pony some cotton wool clouds as well.
 
Try and get the child involved in making the costume, most fancy dress judges will want to know from the child if he/she has had much to do with the prep, and will likely err towards those where the child is more involved. We once incurred the ire of a family who had spent a fortune, Mum and Grandma had arranged the whole thing, children had almost no input, were waited for, for ages and were placed bellow the 15 year old girl who came as a dark angel (must have been frozen :) ) and did all the prep herself :)
 
Whilst I totally agree child should have input, my problem is that child is 3.5yrs old and also male ;) So he's not naturally into his artistic side yet! He'd rather run about than sit and actually do arty stuff (unless you count throwing paint everywhere...). He did choose what to dress himself and pony up as though so he did have quite a big input I like to think ;)
 
sasquatch said:
I did a little bit of googling, and saw this (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v416/prettyboxergirl/DSCN5381.jpg) which is a bit of an alternative take on a superhero and would probably be easy enough to do something similar if you could get a sheet to paint on and a hood to match the sheet colour for the pony. You could paint the sheet so at the bottom it's got the tops of skyscrapers and looks like the sky, and have your son dressed as superman/another flying superhero and give pony some cotton wool clouds as well.
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Cool thanks, great idea!
 
I think the most memorable fancy dress moment in our family was the time we dressed my little sister as Wellington and Mr H was Wimbledon Common. Technically, it was for a charity dressage to music competition (set to a Wombles medley, unsurprisingly), but the idea works the same.

We ran up a slip-on rug in green fleece and attached various 'litter' to it (crisp packets; newspaper; etc.), and braided bits of wool, ribbon and baling twine into H's mane and tail. Sister wore a home-made faux fur top and trousers; blue-and-black felt hat-cover with faux fur ears attached to the bottom; and a funny headpiece I cobbled together out of heavy wire and a polystyrene ball (at the nose end), covered in brown upholstery suede and matching mesh with slightly-customised safety eyes (the sort you use for teddy bears, but painted a more appropriate colour with acrylics, and with the excess 'stalk' chopped off) and a little black plastic teddy nose.

The whole thing was highly amusing, though rather last-minute.
 
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