How To Make A Wise Man Outfit For The Average Parent (warning: Pinterest Mums do not click, the inaccuracy and lack of perfection may infuriate you!)

I am far from being a ‘Pinterest Mum’. I mean, I give things a fair good go but they usually turn out well, um, let’s say less than perfect… Just check out my, er, Halloween pumpkin cupcakes I attempted last year. They certainly didn’t look like this on Pinterest and these definitely didn’t end up at the school fair!

So, when the school said that Jake needed to go as a wise man for one of their lessons I thought to myself ‘hey, I don’t need to spend any money, I can make an outfit!’ (I know, I know, I just can’t stop these daft ideas!)

I asked over on Instagram how I could go about this and there were a few good suggestions so I had a little look around the house, a little look at images on the internet and then decided to give you a point by point blog on how to make this wise man outfit for the average parent, the parent who wants to give it a go but isn’t always too sure, the parent who isn’t overly fussed by perfection and the parent who loves doing these crazy things for their kids. So here goes:

What you will need:

Patience

Lots of cups of tea

Pair of scissors

Some old curtains (or other material)

A whole day

Glue gun

Gems

Headband

Good sense of humour

What you will not need:

Expert crafting skills

Chalk

Professional fabric scissors

Sewing machine

A good eye for detail

 1. Find a suitable item to make the body of the outfit

Old curtains for me but a sheet, an old dress, duvet cover etc. would also work fine I should imagine (I don’t really know I am making all of this up!)

2. Get Cutting!

This is not going to be at all technical. Grab a pair of scissors, any scissors that will cut through fabric are fine. I do not own proper scissors for anything like this and used the dog hair ones! Kitchen scissors wouldn’t cut through it though so you will need something sharper.

Cut off the curtain ring area first. Do not worry about straight lines or measuring we are all winging it here.

Fold the curtain in half and roughly guesstimate where the middle is and how big your child’s head is. There’s no need to mark this out with chalk or a pen, just be brave and go for it. Cut a semi-circle for the head and then open the curtain back up to see if you guessed right… It’s lucky curtains come in pairs!!

If you go wrong, just try again.

Next, ask your child to pop the curtain on and get them to lift their arms a little. From this, you can guesstimate where the armholes need to go. Take your scissors and very carefully cut very small semi-circles and then test the size using your child. You want enough room for movement and for their arms to be able to lift so just chop away at the fabric if you feel you need to make the armholes larger (avoiding any small people limbs or skin or clothing!)

3. Tie Around

Hunt around your home for some sort of fabric, rope, tie, belt etc. that would be suitable for the tie around on the outfit. I found an old silk belt from a dressing gown which was actually perfect. It’s amazing what you can find in drawers, cupboards or the fancy dress box!

With your child back in the wise man outfit, guesstimate again where the holes for your tie around needs to go. There’s no need for accuracy here, the rest looks shoddy so let’s carry on that way, eh!

Make an even smaller semi-circle cut-out with your scissors and check if the tie fits through. Using your hand, roughly work out where it needs to come through on the other side and make another hole. Thread this through and around the child’s back and make two more holes to go back around to the front (make sense?)

4. Tidy Up

Once on and tied up, you will be able to see what shape the outfit is and from here you can just chop away willy-nilly to get your desired shape. I did part of this on the child and then ‘tidied it up’ (I use that term loosely) with it off.

5. Finishing Touches

Pop to Hobbycraft and purchase a glue gun for a fiver as well as some gems. Arrange a nice pattern around the neckline using the gems and then get sticking!

6. Check the Child is Happy

This is a very important part because you know how they can suddenly change their minds, hate it and refuse to wear it. Have them try it on several times and take photos of them to show them how brilliant they look and reiterate this throughout the day!

7. Make a Headdress With the Remaining Material

Because you haven’t quite done enough today and you are a glutton for punishment (plus you don’t own anything else or a crown) you can now fashion a type of wiseman headdress out of the rest of the material. Place the material completely over the child’s head and ask them to be completely still and quiet… You may wanna go and make a cup of tea at this point.

You want to cut an angled part at the front of the head so the curtain sits nicely across the hairline. As you take the scissors up and over. Do please be careful of their existing hair (oops!)

Once you have the shape you can begin to work around the sides on the length (the material, not their hair!) For added pazazz, glue another gem to the front of the headdress.

Then find an old headband or sweatband and wrap this around their head to keep the material in place. Check how the fabric is sitting on their head, remove any bits that may tickle their face and again check the length looks good all the way around the back. Just trim away with the scissors if you feel it needs to be shorter or tidier.

And, voila! You are finished.

One wise man outfit:

I hope you enjoyed my pointers for making a wiseman outfit for your child for the average parent and I hope you too can now go ahead and make an outfit you can also be proud of!

For better crafting blogs please check these out:

Nursery Makeover: Upcycling Pine Furniture

Nursery Makeover: Nautical Themed Canvas Pictures

7 Chicken Pox Survival Activities Tried and Tested

From Nursery To Toddler Room In A Few Simple Steps

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