Fancy dress competitions at fetes.

I was once invited to a fancy dress party when I was 8 months pregnant. I honestly couldn't be bothered to think of a costume so left it to the last minute and went with what my friend suggested. I put a pudding basin on my head and went as a 'member of the pudding club'. It went down really well and a few even thought I had stuffed something up my dress to 'look' pregnant!!!

I might have mentioned this before but I was once at an adult fancy dress party and a VERY pregnant girl with long blonde hair came dressed in a white sheet with some tinsel wings and a tinsel"halo" and a label on her back saying "Fallen angel". Very simple but very effective.

Oh some wonderful effortless suggestions already. Trouble is, you have to be inventive. I remember all too well my mum accidentally sewing my ballet dress on to my knickers as she added roses to the skirt to dress me as "Rose Red" ( my friend went as Snow White) and I was in agony all the time we were on the float in case I " needed to go."
The winning costume was another friend in a plastic mac, wellies and a sou'wester bearing a placard with "Flaming June"
Simple and effective.

My DD2 and her friends had a brilliant group Halloween idea once, at uni. They all dressed as Cluedo. If I remember rightly she was Miss Scarlett killed with a rope.

My DDs and some friends won a fancy dress comp. as a group entry. They went as the Toy box. They were dressed as a toy soldier, a jack in the box, a rag doll, a teddy bear and a book.

I recently made a costume for my DD3 who needed to dress as something to do with space . I thought I had done with fancy dress, she is 30.

I think there is still a mixture of home-made and bought costumes for fancy dress. I was meeting the children from school the day that they had dressed up as characters from a book. Absentdaughter's children had gone as Wendy (long nightdress) and John (striped pyjamas, top hat and drawn-on specs) from Peter Pan and quite a lot of other children were wearing cardboard box robot outfits or cut-offs, eye patches and headscarves as pirates, etc. I think the home-made costumes outnumbered the Disney princesses.

My mother made me a costume for the Coronation street party in 1953, I was a daffodil in green and yellow crepe paper. My sister went as the Queen and won of course. We did not have a sewing machine in those days so everything was hand sewn.

I (well several young chums ) have won a few competitions at local fetes etc.

One of my favorites had 2 youngsters on the same pony, with the children wearing black trousers and a scarlet jumper with a variety of "medals", a variety of the sort of lamps that might be seen on a bicycle and a super mocked up electric bill pasted on to the dear pony's rump.

The children were also carrying "light sabres" (very popular at the time)

They were "The Charge Of The Light Brigade"

Another year I did a "needle in a hay stack!

Fortunately, the fancy dress judges at our local Gala, although they are different people every time, seem to have a penchant for 'Home Made' costumes, especially something topical or humorous. 'Bought' costumes have no chance.

About 61 years ago, there was a fancy dress competition at a local working men`s club. My grandma sent over some gorgeous ready made costumes for me and my brother, he was a Chinaman and I was a Persian prince, they were all satiny and lovely. For my 3 year old sister, my mother made a little skirt of petals, made from green and yelow crepe paper, worn over her own dress, plus a little paper hat looking like petals, and she carried a large strawberry punnet filled with flowers out of our garden, and she went as a flower girl. She won! Another year, my brother was encased in a large Izal toilet roll box, with small boxes up his arms and legs, and another on his head, he came 2nd. So the posh fancy ones don`t always win.

I made costumes for DDs when they were at school from what I had in the house and cardboard boxes. DD1 went as a badger and a bookworm. DD2 went as fairy lights.

The school only did competitions 3 times then it became ridiculous as parents started to spend more and more money. But the final straw came when a child made her own costume out of bin bags and a witches hat and won. A lot of parents were up in arms because they'd spent a lot of money on elaborate costumes and thought it was wrong that a cheap costume had won.

Indeed. My lot had to put up with me dictating the costume dependent on what I had to hand and what I could make. Including Ugly Sister and Queen of Hearts, and for DS1 an Indian when every other boy at the party was a cowboy. It's a wonder they haven't developed complexes.

Mine too, but these days a lot of mums have less time and no sewing expertise to speak of - plus all the little girls want to be Disney princesses or one of the Frozen pair...

My children regularly went to events that needed a costume but they were all made very simply at home by me.I never even thought about trying to buy one , what a waste of money.Just simple costumes, a black cat, a bee,
A cricketer, a cowboy, a doll etc.

People used to go to an awful lot of effort. I remember sitting up most of one night finishing a cardboard and balsa wood WW1 plane to fit round my son's waist so that he could be part of the Beavers' Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines walking group at the local gala. I was really proud of the finished article, but it paled into insignificance against some of them, that actually looked as if they could take off at any time.

Yes it is. My son went as a scarecrow to one event, in an outfit made by me, and with real hay sticking out of the sleves and trousers. Much to my surprise, he won! It was all hastily put together, as he only decided to enter the competition on the morning of the fête.

It still happens round our way. Lovely to see. People are very talented and original. We are probably 30 years behind the times though in some respects!