A Nativity Lamb

This year the boys were in a nativity play. The focus of the play, rather than telling the whole story, was the experiences of the Shepherds. Sprog dressed up as a cute little shepherd using a slightly modified costume we were provided with.

At the rehearsal the night before Widget didn't want to do anything but hold onto Mummy. I was pulled into the play as another shepherd. Since I would be carrying him anyway it was suggested that Widget become a lamb or sheep instead of a teeny tiny shepherd. This was all great in theory, but a costume was needed. Overnight. And all fabric stores were closed.

I dug into my stash and got to work.

For fabric I used some white t-shirting I had picked up at the second-hand shop, two old long sleeved t-shirt (one black, one grey), and some white fleece I had leftover from making Paw Patrol vests and capes.

I used the scuba hood pattern from Brindelle and Twig, and the Junior Jogger pattern from Peekaboopatterns as the base for top and bottom respectively.

For the bottoms I made a straightforward version, with grey for the legs, and black cuffs.

For the top it was a little bit trickier. The arms, front, back and hood inner were white, with black cuffs on the end of the sleeves, but the hood outer, and a back over lay was made out of fleece. The back overlay I cut the shoulders to fit, but cut wide down the sides and over the bottom to create a kind of sheep fleece effect. I kept the fleece to a minimum given that our Christmas is in summer. A singlet would be enough to keep him warm. 

To the hood I added ears. I cut large triangles, and included a pink triangle inside them, then folded them over to create an ear look. To get them right I basted them into ear shapes and basted them on to the hood, before attaching them securely. 

The tail was a couple of rectangles of fleece, sewn together with curved ends, stuffed with scraps and pinned in place. I put them on the top for two reasons. 1. It would be more comfortable, and more visible. 2. It meant the pants could be used as regular pants. 

On the day to complete the effect Widget had a bit of face paint. He liked the look so much he insisted on keeping it on while we went out for lunch and shopping with the Grandparents for the boys Christmas book despite the temperature being in the early to mid 20's and the sun beating down. 

 

Bob the Builder Builder's Yard - Cake Version

Sprog has turned three, and with a birthday comes a party. I already made him a shirt for his Bob the Builder costume, now it was cake time. To make things fairly easy for myself I chose to do a cake version of the Builder's Yard where Bob has his office, and all the work vehicles are parked. It is also implied that Bob lives there.

It looks like this in toy form:

It a very busy time of year for us and I after a particularly stressful start of the week I decided to ease my workload. I went to the supermarket and ordered a plain slab of chocolate sponge cake to carve and ice. 

I had borrowed some Bob toys from a friend and used a selection on the cake.  The design itself was simple, a large square of double sponge, with a house and shed along one side, a lean to on the other, a wooden fence on 2 sides and chocolate gravel on the yard itself. Added to that was Pilchard the cat, Spud the scarecrow, and of course, Bob and Wendy. 

The house and shed were layers of sponge cut to size, then iced with fondant roofs and windows. Pilchard sat on the roof of the house. The lean-to was in another corner with Spud the scarecrow hiding on the roof waiting for the opportunity to create mischief.

The fencing was made of alternating wafer sticks. Alternating so I would get maximum coverage without a change in visual from one type to another. They held themselves up from being stuck to the buttercream icing.  For the gravel I tossed white and dark chocolate buttons in the food processors and whizzed until it was small enough and spread it over the rest. Leftover wafers filled the lean-to, the bucket on Scoop (the red one). Leftover gravel was put down for Scoop to scoop up. Unfortunately the carefully placed gravel did not make it to the party, it was too enticing for the newly minted 3-year-old to play with.