54 feathers later....

and the front of the owl costume has been pinned together.

On the 3rd March, we'll celebrate World Book Day at school.
Claire has decided to dress as one of her favourite characters from a book series that she is currently enjoying.

Sometimes I wish i'd think things through before acting, and this is one such time.

After all the advertisements about The Guardians of Ga'Hoole film last year, I decided to get Claire what i thought was 'the book' to read before she saw the film.

I later discovered that 'the book' is in fact 15 books.

Rather than take a risk that she might not like the story, I bought the first 4 for her Christmas. I didn't really think at the time, but the book order came from the States.

I turns out that the books have only been published in America, subsequently, i have been spending a fortune getting these books shipped from the states.
She's just received books 5 - 7 and is nearly through them so I'd better get a move on and order the next 3.

She knew straight away that she wanted to dress up as Eglantine the Barn Owl, one of the main characters of the story.

Over the last few days I have been researching how to make an owl costume, as I'm not prepared to buy one.

I'll probably regret that decision too.

After downloading a couple of ideas from the net, I've come up with a hybrid plan for the costume at no expense.

Most of the evening has been spent cutting out feather shapes from various bits of material I have lying around the house.

I'm using an old pillowcase as the tunic of the costume and now I'll need to spend a while (probably most of Sunday) sewing the feathers on. (sigh!)

At least we had a pleasant day in St Andrews. After a long walk with the dogs on West Sands, we went for lunch at the Bean Scene - delish hummus and cucumber salad.

We had a browse through the bookshops, Bonkers and a trip to Burns (sweetie shop) for some I'm too old for these kid sweets then made our way back home.

I couldn't resist experimenting on the chickens when we got back. It turns out that yes they are daft enough to try some popping candy and no they don't care much for it.