Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Penguin Costume {DIY}

Once again we had another family school project...a penguin costume.  A couple weeks ago a note was sent home in Dalton's backpack explaining that we neeeded to make a penguin costume from a brown paper bag for the Kindergarten classes annual Penguin Program.

Our instructions:
1. Get a large paper grocery bag.
2. Paint it all black.
3. Paint the belly white.
4. Cut a hole for the head.
5. Cut two side flaps for flippers.
6. You may then embellish it any ways you want to match your childs role. *Dalton is a King Penguin*
7. Find props that will match your type of penguin.
8. And they must memorize the line below. Dalton's line "Mommy and Daddy penguins take turns taking care of the baby." How fitting! I just love it. It reinforces my belief that both parents should share parenting responsibilities equally.

Our second note re-emphazied that a King penguin needed a crown, scepter and cape.

We gathered our supplies and started the project.

I saved Dalton's crown from the knighting ceremony in September so we re-used his blue crown, but we jeweled it up a bit.


I took a brown paper bag and spray painted it black. I don't recommend spray painting in a garage, but when the wind blows for days outside you have to get a bit creative.


To make the sceptor we used a styrofoam ball, glued it to a wood rod and spray painted it gold.


Once the paper bag was dry we cut out the white belly from a legal size piece of paper.


I originally used spray glue to attach the two, but that did not work. I went back to my trusty stick glue and it worked like a charm.


My next challenge was cutting a hole for the head. It had to be big enough to get his head thru, but small enough to keep it from falling off his thin shoulders. I started in the center of the bag and continued to cut around in a square until it was large enough. For the arm holes I used the scissor to puncture a hole and then cut in a round direction upward on both sides to make flaps that resembled penguin flippers.


Dress rehearsal before going any further. It's important to make sure all the pieces are coming together as envisioned.


The sceptor was actually fairly easy. We took a simplistic approach and hot glued various size and colored jewels to the painted styrofoam ball.


The night before it was due we added a blue bow-tie at Dalton's request and embellished to give a tuxedo look. This is also the night Dalton and I had a difference in opinion. The only thing left was the cape. I was simply going to hot glue a piece of fabric to the back of the bag, but in Dalton's eyes that was not enough. His words, "Mom that's not a cape. Penguins don't have anything glued to them." Uh oh, I was in trouble now. I was not prepared to do anything different especially at the last minute and this was not a battle I wanted to pick. I simply wrote a note and said we would turn in his cape on Monday.
  

Saturday I got out my brand new sewing machine I got for Christmas. Dalton got to pick from my fabric supply and I made a cape 'the way he envisioned'. I just love that he has opinions already. Are boys really suppose to have an opinion when it comes to things like this?


The finished project from Saturday. A couple hour project in between watching two kids and having a two-year old helper for everything.


Dalton modeling his new cape.


Excuse the face paint. We went to a birthday party Saturday morning which had to stay on all day.

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