World Book Day | Costume Ideas & How To Guides

World Book Day is nearly upon us and 40% of parents we surveyed revealed that they make their own costumes rather than buying them. Of those, 43% reported actually enjoying making the costume.

World Book Day should be fun, so we have created a list of resources available for parents of the 2021 Top 3 Franchises – as predicted by parents.

Harry Potter

Harry Potter was hands down the most suggested costume of 2021, and why wouldn’t it be? Not only are the characters loved by both parents and children, but the costumes can be very simple to make. The main costume materials being a regular school uniform.

Your uniform should consist of trousers or skirt (these can be grey or black, depending on what film version you want to follow), a white shirt, grey V-neck jumper, grey socks and black school shoes.

The jumper does have the house colours accenting it, which you can craft with glue and felt.

We’ve included the basic instructions on how to customise your costume to suit your character.

Glasses

For the Harry Potter Glasses you have the choice to go with fancy dress glasses, or you can use this print out and make your own.

Tie

If you’re using felt as the main material to accessorise with, we’d recommend One Sweet Appetite which has the sweetest felt ties for all the houses. The ties can be clipped onto the costume with no hassle.

Badge

The house crest is one of the most important aspects of your costume and yet so variable. This can be either made out of felt using your different house colours, or you can print out a copy of the badge onto card and use a safety pin to attach it. Pinterest is an excellent resource for the abundance of badge designs out there.

The Robe

To finish your Hogwarts uniform, you will need your wizard’s robe. Fleece Fun provides a free pattern and tutorial outlining the steps needed. The instructions come with helpful information to help you scale the robe to your child if you need to.

Are you going to create a Harry Potter costume for World Book Day? Why not download our easy craft card?

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Elsa (Frozen)

Whilst there is always controversy around Elsa and the other Frozen characters, we like to think of Elsa as the much nicer version of her inspiration, The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson. This would then technically fit in with World Book Day, so why not go for it.

There were so many options with this. From highly technical, to the no sew option, it’s a costume that any parent could get involved with. Your main material for this costume? Tulle. Lots and lots of tulle.

The No Sew Option

If you are dreading World Book Day because it will mean either braving the shops for a costume or struggling with a needle and thread, do not fear – Let’s Do Something Crafty has you covered. This tutorial requires you to have an elastic band and tulle. You can even add in lots of different colours if you wanted to.

The Easy Option

This is one dress option for parents with a little bit of skill, who want to create something beautiful. We found the tutorial easy to follow, with the ability to learn and develop sewing skills. The Girl Inspired look is the one to follow here.

 

The Technical Option

This last tutorial from Casey Renee Cosplay is absolutely breath taking and takes costume making to the next level. It’s designed for those with a higher level of skill and is broken down into different stages with various YouTube videos to help along the way.

Even if you find the idea of making a full dress with sleeves from scratch intimidating, it’s well worth taking a look in case you can pick up some hints and tips along the way. You can see Casey’s other work on her blog.

Hair

No Elsa costume would be complete without her trademark braid. Fortunately, Makeup Wearables has created a video tutorial and visual guide. It’s one guide that you can use again and again for the little princesses in your life.

When we were compiling this guide, we just had to give an honourable mention to this Anna hair tutorial by Cute Girls Hairstyles. It’s a very challenging style (even for the experts), but if you wanted to push yourself out of your comfort zone, it’s worth a look.

Are you going to create an Elsa costume for World Book Day? Why not download our easy craft card?

Download

 

The Gruffalo

The Gruffalo was the third most popular choice – largely voted for by parents of pre-school children – and while information out there is sparse, this should help inspire creativity. Unsurprisingly, it is difficult to create a costume using faux fur and it can certainly get messy quickly, which is why most tutorials use felt. A material that is not only inexpensive, but easy to find and use.

The Mouse

Our personal favourites included The Mouse costume by WEALD which is ideal for parents of pre-schoolers, and this costume from Little Button Diaries. The best part about this get-up is the tiny acorn bag, which children can use as their own lunch bag for the day. After all, who doesn’t love accessorising their outfits? You can use these images as your templates.

The Gruffalo

For the Gruffalo, we would recommend a simple costume like the one created by MummyMooTwo which uses a simple robe as it’s template. This is not only ideal, in terms of its practicality, but it’s also super comfortable as well. You can even use the tutorial for the Harry Potter robe for extra help.

If you’re looking for mask templates then look no further than Party Delights. Not only have they made a wonderfully fun and easy-to-follow guide, but they are a great resource for any crafty parent too.

If you’re really stuck for your Gruffalo, why not look into face painting the little monsters, with these official Gruffalo Patterns to use with brown pyjamas.

Are you going to create a Gruffalo costume for World Book Day? Why not download our easy craft card?

Download

 

World Book Day doesn’t need to be a challenge for parents, and we hope that this article will help increase your enjoyment for the event.