Being a mill

Remember this post about my eldest being the Erasmus bridge? Look at my youngest daughter now, being a mill during carnival at school and the way back home by metro! One of the themes was Holland. She wanted to be this herself and she worked so hard to finish the mill in time. Lucky with a father like F, who made the vanes being able to turn around. Using a bicycle hub. Made it all together a great week!
(Btw, funny that I suddenly discovered this behind the stage. Apparently still laying around in the school's attic.)

One day of a fox's life

What to tell? This day was just great! See the preparations in the former post.

Being a?

This weekend preparations for Carnival are in full swing. Is it clear what L is going to be?

After this we closed the back of the head as well.

Now we only have to paint it today. L, I think we are a super team! Please come back to see the final result.

Being a goddess

This year's themes in school for M are the ancient Greeks and the Egyptians. Carnival fits in with these themes. Her first idea of being a pyramid didn't make it. After googling images of Egyptian goddesses the choice was made: she would be Hathor, goddess of joy and motherhood.

On Saturday M and I did some shopping: we needed golden ribbon and feathers. We loved the black ones we found finally! Sunday evening her hair, wings and dress (super simple but with a blind zipper on the side) were ready to wear, but her collar failed (after my try to sew circles of slippery golden fabric and cotton fabric). After using interfacing for the golden fabric her collar (or do I need to call it a necklace?) turned out fine.

Her wings were attached to the back of her dress by press buttons. We tried and tried, but didn't succeed to fix her typical sun-between-two-horns on her head. So in the end F changed the head attribute into a staff. If L wants to wear this costume as well when she is in the fifth class, we've got four more years to find a solution for the headdress. I'm curious!
Yes, M was proud to go and show herself. And even more after winning a price!

L's turn

Bye! she said to her mother. During her walk through the forest she decided to collect some forest treasures for her grandma.

She loved to see the sunlight shining through the trees. Happy with everything she had in her little basket, she continued her walk, unconsciously about dangerous animals nearby....

No, this is not a fairytale, this is about today's carnival at school, that I loved to attend. L persisted in going to the forest afterwards to play her role.
Why L's turn? Look at this. Only difference: for some reason M's red dress got lost during the years.

A bridge?

Yesterday M celebrated carnival in school. The theme of this year was 'Rotterdam', the city where we live in. So, I said to M, you may choose: do you want to be the Euromast, the KPN building or the Erasmusbrug? Full of enthusiasm she told me that she wanted to be the bridge! No wonder, because she is connected to this icon, passing it by bike every day a few times. But there was a request: mama, please make of photo of me by the bridge. And here she is. It's the evidence that a person can turn into a bridge! (What you see on her cheeks are some matching birds I quickly drew this morning.)

This week she worked hard every spare time she had: she designed, drilled, painted, fixed the cables and fixed the cars. Of course we wanted to be able to use the cars again afterwards, so we came up with a good idea: for each car two holes under two diagonal wheels were drilled. Then an elastic hair tie up through the holes and around the wheels. The pylons were made out of a double layer of light weighted foamboard and painted in our lightbluegrey wall color (now I realized that we have the color of the bridge at home!). The deck was made of thin plywood, that M finished in blackboard paint. To 'wear' the bridge M had to step in and then turn the bridge 90°  around her body. This way she could carry it on her hips, but we added two shoulder straps as well.

After school we partly took the metro back home. M was very attractive under the ground as well as above; she got a lot of compliments of passers by! That's probably why she preferred to walk all the way back home from the bridge.

These are some pics at school and going back home.

Look at these creative Rotterdam buildings (Euromast, kubuswoningen, Potlood)!

For those insiders who are interested in L as well: she wanted to be a cleaner (to be more precisely: ours, called Maria) once again.

Another apron

My eldest daughter M is a horse lover, I told you before. She attends a riding school every saturday and hardly wants to leave there after the lesson. Although she's a very girlish girl, she liked to idea to go like a blacksmith to school carnaval. Our neighbour had a gold painted horseshoe for her, which made the idea even more attractive.
She knew that her best friend, of course a horse lover as well, would be a horse riding teacher. But what wasn't agreed on was the very funny purple horse, made by her mother and that her friend brought along. The heavy horse was best carried by both girls. M was happy indeed to give it some horseshoes!

This year's carnaval

Making a costume for only one special day at school? I doubted it, just like every year. But on the day itself we use to wonder why being doubtful after seeing those happy faces. This year's theme for L is 'metiers'. She really loves to assist our cleaning help, so this is what she wanted to be.

She could clean the whole house right away! To start with the mirror...
Tomorrow is school carnaval. She insists on taking a bottom of soapy water in the bucket. I decided to go by car and not by bike...

Fake braids

Another carnaval costume I made before. M wanted it so much, because we were into the fairytale period. I used a real pattern, even in English, which was quite hard to understand. The cape is made out of woolen fabric, the color of the lining is purple. The evening before a little drama happened: she yelled disappointedly that she looked like a witch! The cape turned out to be far too long. You understand I was busy till late that night to correct it.
She especially loved her fake braids at that time. How could she know about her beautiful real ones of today?

Yellow flower

Allthough especially the south of the Netherlands is specialist in celebrating carnaval, I made several costumes for school carnaval in the past. I'll show some of them for inspiration. Here you see M and L, four years old and dressed up like a flowergirl. Pictures are taken with an interval of 4 years: last year and 5 years ago. Everything is made of transparent curtain samples, no more of use in the office. The skirt has transparent and solid layers. The wings are made by covering a flat brass frame with transparent fabric.
This week we are thinking about this year's costumes. Maybe you too?

Sorry for the dots, they're just added to protect M and L.