World Book Day Costumes 2009

This years World Book Day in the UK and Ireland will be on March 5th 2009. The rest of the world celebrates the day on St.
George’s Day, 23rd April every year. The reason that the UK celebrates it on a
different day is because here there is a large involvement with the
schools and it is placed during the school term.

One of the main aims is to encourage children to read more by making books and reading more fun and by providing them with the opportunity to have a book of their own. There will be a number of events associated with this day and one of them
being Fancy Dress.

World Book Day Costumes

The idea of getting kids to dress up in fancy dress costumes, with a book theme, I think is excellent. Dressing up is always good fun. It is hoped that this fun with the costumes will also encourage children read more, to find out more about the character of the costume that they are wearing.

Costume Ideas for World Book Day
So what fancy dress costumes are there that come from a book, or have a book theme, here are a few fancy dress ideas that I can think of. If you can think of any more ideas, please feel free to comment below.

Boys Costume ideas for Book Week:

• Harry Potter Costume
• Robin Hood Costume
• Dennis The Menace Costume
• Wizard Of Oz Costume
• Child Tin Man Costume (Wizard of Oz )
• Child Scarecrow Costume (Wizard of Oz )
• Aladdin Costume
• Peter Pan Costume
• Noddy Costume
• Wombles Costumes
• Paddington Bear Costume
• Puss in Boots Costume
• King of Hearts Costume (Alice in Wonderland)
• Zorro Costume
• Dracula Costume
• Frankenstein Costume
• The Cat in The Hat Costume
• Jungle Book Costumes
• Oliver Twist Costume
• Wind in The Willows Costumes
• Peter Rabbit Costumes
• Costume ideas from the Bible
• Gulliver's Travels
• Dr. Dolittle Costumes
• Pinocchio Costume
• Aladdin Costume
• Winnie The Pooh Costume
• Lord of The Rings Costumes
• Jack & The Beanstalk Costume (Jack & a Giant Costume)
• Pirate Costume
• Young Bond - James Bond Costume
  

Girls Costume ideas for Book Week:

• Alice in Wonderland Costume
• Queen of Hearts Costume (Alice in Wonderland)
• Little Red Riding Hood Costume
• Cinderella Costume
  
• Snow White Costume
• Tinkerbell Costume
• Teen Dorothy Costume (Wizard of Oz)
• Heidi Costume
• Witch Costumes - From many books including Winnie The Witch & Shakespeare!
• The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe costume ideas
• Little Miss Muffet
• Goldilocks & The Three Bears costumes
• Princess & The Pea Costume
• Beatrix Potter Books - Think Rabbit costumes
  

Where to buy World Book Day Costumes
Amazon.co.uk has an excellent range of fancy dress costumes for children:
Children's Costumes on Amazon.co.uk

World Book Day Costumes: Alice in Wonderland

World Book Day 2009 falls on Thursday 5th March 2009 and so until then I plan to explore some costume and fancy dress ideas that you and your children can start thinking of before the big day. For more on World Book Day and an article that I wrote last year, check out my World Book Day Costumes Post.

In my eyes, costumes suitable should either be based around the theme of a book or indeed contain the character from a book and so to start of this series, I will take a look at one of the most popular fancy dress costumes for women:

Alice in Wonderland Costumes
I have already written a pretty comprehensive post on Alice in Wonderland Costumes aimed at adults and so won't go into the whole story, but just to say that there are some really good Alice costumes for children and teens out there. The story of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is excellent and one that every child should know and if you can get your child interested in the costume as well as the story then surely this is the main idea behind the day, to promote reading by making the stories more than just words on a page - fantastic.

Where to Buy Childrens Alice in Wonderland Costumes:

In the USA
Alice in Wonderland Costumes: For both adults and children.

In the UK
Alice in Wonderland Costumes: For both adults and children.

Up-Helly-Aa & Fancy Dress Costumes

Up-Helly-Aa Fire Festival
I must confess that I did not know about the Up-Helly-Aa festival and only found it when looking for fancy dress events in 2009. For those of you who don't know about it the main Up-Helly-Aa festival is held on the island of Shetland in the town of Lerwick every year on the last Tuesday of January to mark the end of the yule season. There are other similar fire festivals held on Shetland, mostly during the middle of winter, but the Lerwick one is the largest.

The Up Helly Aa festival consists of a procession of up to a thousand guizers wearing mostly Viking costumes who march through the town. As well as these official "vikings" the many visitors dressed in all sorts of costumes also join the march (I have seen a chicken costume and even a buzz lightyear costume on a You Tube video.) The main main guizer of the festival is known as the "Jarl" which is a very prestigious position and can only be achieved by being part of a committee for at least 15 years. This committee then elects the "Jarl" with only one being selected every year.

This procession then ends with everyone then throwing their lighted torches onto a replica of a Viking ship, to form the huge bonfire. The party is then said to continue on well into the early hours of the morning, so much so that even in 1824 a visiting Methodist missionary said that "the whole town was in an uproar: from twelve o clock last night until late this night blowing of horns, beating of drums, tinkling of old tin kettles, firing of guns, shouting, bawling, fiddling, fifeing, drinking, fighting. This was the state of the town all the night - the street was as thronged with people as any fair I ever saw in England."

Fancy Dress ideas for Up Helly Aa fire festival
even though I mentioned earlier that in some of the photographs and videos that you can find on Up-Helly-Aa, there are people dressing up in all sorts of fancy dress and Halloween type costumes, I think it would be fun to stick a little with the tradition of this island that sits almost exactly at the centre of a triangle, with Norway, Faroe and Scotland and thus has a very strong Viking connection.

Viking Costumes
After a quick search I found loads Viking costumes, from the pretty realistic deluxe versions to the cheaper funny costumes. Ladies, the good news is that there are also plenty of female Viking costumes, with the sexy Helga Viking Costume being my particular favourite.

Thor Costume
A Thor costume would also make a great costume for Up-Helly-Aa, even though Thor was the god of thunder, there must be lightening with thunder and where there is lightening, there is often fire, so the perfect costume for a Viking fire festival!

Obelix and Asterix Costumes
Another idea that I feel could be quite fun is to dress up in some of the most famous Vikings of all: Obelix and Asterix and the good news is that there are both commercial Obelix costumes and Asterix costumes available!

For more information on Up-Helly-Aa:
The official Website of the Lerwick Up-Helly-Aa Committee
Up-Helly-Aa Page on Visit Shetland

Fancy Dress Films in 2009

My last post on events before April 2009 where dressing up in fancy dress is not only acceptable, but encouraged: Fancy Dress & Halloween Costumes 2009 got me thinking into what other fancy dress ideas for the coming year are there? Films are always great for fancy dress themes, so here are the films that I could find that will be showing at a big screen near you that can also be used at a fancy dress party:

Films Due For Release in 2009
Another great fancy dress idea is to dress up in blockbuster film of the moment, here are a few films that also have great potential for fancy dress in 2009:

The Pink Panther 2 (February 2009)
With an all star cast that includes Steve Martin, Jean Reno, John Cleese and Andy Garcia, there is hope that this return of the Pink Panther could be really good. What is always strange is that there is no actual Pink Panther in the film, it is in fact a diamond! Still there are plenty of really Pink Panther costumes available that I think make a fun fancy dress costume.

Shoppers in the USA:
Pink Panther Costume on Amazon.com


Shoppers in the UK:
Pink Panther Costume on Amazon.co.uk



Star Trek: May
A new Star Trek film id due for release in May this year, to be followed by a TV series. Winona Ryder will play Spock's mum, Amanda Grayson. Simon Pegg plays Scotty, and Zachary Quinto from TV’s Heroes plays a young Spock. With the new star Treck film, you can expect tricky time travel shenanigans, freak transporter accidents and a clever, ubiquitous and ultimately slightly annoying viral marketing campaign. There are plenty of Star Trek costumes out there already and I expect, the closer we get to the release of the film, the more we are going to see.

Shoppers in the USA:
Star Trek Costumes on Amazon.com


X-Men Origins: Wolverine: May
Superhero costumes are always popular and the release of a new superhero film always makes that particular superhero costume sell like hotcakes. This year instead of Batman costumes, will we see everyone wearing a Wolverine costume? The new film follows the early years of Logan, the indestructible mutant who will one day be X-Man Wolverine. Cameos from future X-Men and the chance to see how Logan acquired his deadly claws and curious hairdo suerly make it worth seeing alone!

Shoppers in the USA:
Wolverine Costumes on Amazon.com



Shoppers in the UK:
Wolverine Costumes on Amazon.co.uk


Terminator Salvation: June

Yes!, the much anticipated ‘future war’ part of the Terminator series, which was previously only hinted at in the first three movies will hog the storyline of this killer robot film. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said he was too busy running California to play the main part of the iconic cyborg killing machine, which will be taken by Roland Kickinger. A Terminator costume makes an excellent idea for a fancy dress outfit, lets hope they bring out a few new ones this year. For more info check out the Official site & Trailer

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: June

Let's hope that this year with the new film, that somebody out there creates some Transformers costumes. Thissequel to last year’s film is said to offer even more action, more laughs, and more shape-shifting robots.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: July

Harry Potter fans are eagerly awaiting the sixth film in the hugely popular series of films adapted from JK Rowling’s incredible books. Harry Potter costumes have always been popular and I predict that they will get even more popular this year.. sometime around July!

G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra: August

G.I Joe is big name in the US, just think of Action Man and you will get the idea, this film could be interesting and if they don't develop an official G.I Joe Costume, it should be pretty easy to create an army or action man costume.

Nottingham: November

Robin Hood costumes are great and I think in some ways are timeless. The release of this new film where Russell Crowe will play the role of Robin Hood.

Bestival Festival & Fancy dress Costumes

30,000 FREAKS UNDER THE SEA

That is the official theme for this years fancy dress at the Bestival Festival 2008. Which is pretty cool because it provides you with plenty of scope to be creative with you fancy dress ideas.

A few initial costumes and perhaps the more obvious ones that spring to mind are:
Mermaid Costumes
Squid Costumes
Shark Costumes

But I have also done a bit of research and you can even find ghost ship costumes, shell costumes and you could even go as a treasure chest (sunken treasure - get it?!!)

It was also announced that my favourite website for fancy dress, Jokers' Masquerade will be the official fancy dress partner to this years Bestival festival and they are offering a 10% discount for all festival goers: Take a look at Bestival Fancy Dress on Jokers' Masquerade for loads of great fancy dress ideas the promo code is BEST08 for the 10% discount.

Anyway.. The official press statement from Bestival is below:

Forget the question of just who will finally grab the US Democrat nomination, the real question on the lips of people in the know in recent weeks has been ‘What the heck is Rob da Bank going to announce as the fancy dress theme for Bestival 2008’?

And now we can exclusively reveal the answer to be (drum roll)… 30,000 FREAKS UNDER THE SEA!!

Yep – taking a lead from legendary author Jules Verne’s classic tome ‘20,000 Leagues Under The Sea’, we can now announce that we are taking it even deeper… 30,000 party people will be deep sea skiving in their bestest underwater fancy-dress garb at Robin Hill Country Park, Isle of Wight for this September’s multi-award winning Bestival (which sold out in record time this year).

Expect scantily-clad mermaids by the dozen, sharks, stingrays, probably the odd shopping trolley and who knows, love might well prove a many tentacled thing for any lucky squid in the area… And surely somebody will resurrect the classic 70s underwater crooner Frankie Prawn joke (please)? The world of costume truly is your lobster at Bestival 2008!

Bestival head-honcho (and BBC Radio One DJ) Rob da Bank said today :

‘We wracked our collective brains ‘til they turned to custard and eventually came up with '30,000 FREAKS UNDER THE SEA' - essentially another open-ended theme open to abuse and many different angles which we hope you'll follow! This year we'll do a night parade as well as daytime one, so make sure you light up bright - calling all pesky squids, little urchins, deep sea divers and Yellow Submarines!

And if you need a wee bit of help in coming up with the perfect sub-aquatic costume this year, why not take a trip to the ever-helpful Jokers’ Masquerade website…

Following their successful sponsorship of last year’s Bestival FM radio-station, the lovely people at Jokers' Masquerade have announced that they will be partnering up with Bestival once again. Jokers' Masquerade are the perfect fancy dress solution for Bestivalgoers everywhere, offering over 10,000 costumes to choose from securely online, including many outfits especially available to inspire you for this year's '30,000 Freaks Under The Sea' theme.

Check out Bestival Fancy Dress on Jokers' Masquerade for loads of great fancy dress ideas and don't forget to enter promo code BEST08 to enjoy an exclusive 10% discount. NB. Promo code must be written in capitals. Offer valid until 31st August 2008.

And keep checking out www.bestival.net for all the latest info.

Kids Costumes for World Book Day

Started by UNESCO as a way of promoting and developing reading throughout the world, World Book day is now entering its 2nd decade in the United Kingdom.

Support for what is an excellent idea is growing year on year. In the UK and Ireland, it is celebrated on the 6th of March and free book tokens are given to school children. Different schools who have registered and will approach the World Book Day differently, with some inviting a book seller to visit. Other schools will invite a story teller. Many schools encourage their pupils to come dressed as their favourite book character.

Some of the best fancy dress ideas for World Book Day?
One of the best ways I have found for looking for inspiration when deciding on a fancy dress costume is to browse on-line costume shops. This does not mean that you have to purchase your costume, but it can give you some excellent ideas on what to make.

Girls Costume ideas for World Book Day:

• Alice in Wonderland Costume
• Queen of Hearts Costume (Alice in Wonderland)
• Cinderella Costume
• Princess & The Pea Costume
• Snow White Costume
• Tinkerbell Costume
• Teen Dorothy Costume (Wizard of Oz)
• Heidi Costume
• Witch Costumes - From many books including Winnie The Witch & Shakespeare!
• The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe costume ideas
• Little Miss Muffet
• Little Red Riding Hood Costume
• Goldilocks & The Three Bears costumes
• Beatrix Potter Books - Think Rabbit costumes

Boys Costume ideas for World Book Day:

• Harry Potter Costume
• Robin Hood Costume
• Dennis The Menace Costume
• Wizard Of Oz Costume
• Child Tin Man Costume (Wizard of Oz )
• Child Scarecrow Costume (Wizard of Oz )
• Aladdin Costume
• Peter Pan Costume
• Noddy Costume
• Wombles Costumes
• Paddington Bear Costume
• Puss in Boots Costume
• King of Hearts Costume (Alice in Wonderland)
• Zorro Costume
• Dracula Costume
• Frankenstein Costume
• The Cat in The Hat Costume
• Jungle Book Costumes
• Oliver Twist Costume
• Wind in The Willows Costumes
• Peter Rabbit Costumes
• Costume ideas from the Bible
• Gulliver's Travels
• Dr. Dolittle Costumes
• Pinocchio Costume
• Aladdin Costume
• Winnie The Pooh Costume
• Lord of The Rings Costumes
• Jack & The Beanstalk Costume (Jack & a Giant Costume)
• Pirate Costume
• Young Bond - James Bond Costume
  

Where to buy World Book Day Costumes
Amazon.co.uk has an excellent range of fancy dress costumes for children:
Children's Costumes on Amazon.co.uk

More on World Book Day 2009

Fancy Dress Ideas: Halloween Extravaganza

Here is one of the best fancy dress ideas in the UK for a while: A special Halloween Fancy Dress Extravaganza at Simon Drake’s House Of Magic in London, UK.

So if your looking for a Fancy dress Halloween party, tickets are now on sale for for the annual fancy dress halloween special evening which is available as a shared evening on Friday 26th October. This event has become more popular each year with past acts which include Richard O’Brien singing The Time Warp at midnight.

There can be very few entertainment venues in the UK like The House of Magic and they have even had clients fly whole groups of people from overseas to experience a full evening.

For more details and to book:

Contact: Simon Drake's House of Magic
Tel: +44 (0)20 7735 477
Emal: info@houseofmagic.co.uk

That's it from Fancy Dress Ideas UK for now but check back soon for our Halloween Fancy Dress Special

Fancy Dress Ideas UK: Halloween charity dive

Definitely one of the most unique Fancy Dress Ideas I have ever seen, A Halloween charity Dive.

The Scuba Dive is part of a fund-raising dive at Gildenburgh Water in Whittlesey on Sunday, October 28.

There will be divers from all across the across the UK and you are encouraged to come along and take part in the day’s diving activities, which will include a treasure hunt underwater with a prize for the winning team, best Fancy Dress costume and top fund-raiser.

“All money raised on the day will go towards Mencap’s work with people with a learning disability, enabling them to take part in many of the leisure activities that other people take for granted.”

So if you fancy taking the plunge for charity and you live in the area, then a fancy dress Halloween dive UK 2007 could be just for you.

Fancy Dress Ideas UK: Flying Fancy Dress!

Those Magnificent Men in Their fancy dress and Flying Machines. Every year in the town of Bognor in Sussex UK people gather for the annual Bognor Birdman challenge. This year saw the 36th edition of the event where competitors "fly" into the sea wearing crazy fancy dress costumes and home built flying machines. It is great fun to watch, as well as to find some excellent fancy dress ideas.

The event is taken very seriously by some participants and with a £25,000 jackpot for anyone who can travel 100m, who can blame them! The more serious competitors don't tend to wear fancy dress, but the vast majority do and there are cash prizes for the best fancy dress ideas. This event held in the UK along with other eccentric events are uniquely British and long may they continue!

Check out this YouTube video for some highlights of last years event.

So if your looking for something to do in your fancy dress costume, or you are looking for some fancy dress ideas in the UK or just want a laugh, why not travel down to Bognor next year for the Birdman Challenge.