Catching up...and Carnival!!

I can hardly believe that I haven't posted anything here since before Christmas! What started as a short break for mince pies and gift wrapping has turned into nearly 3 months. Of course, here in the Canary Islands, almost as soon as the last traces of Christmas have disappeared we start to prepare for Carnival. The shops fill with the most amazing selection of fabrics, everywhere you look there are masks and costumes, and around the streets you can hear the groups of 'Murgas' (Carnival singers) practising for hours on end.

We asked the children to pick the theme this year (were we mad???) and they chose 'Alice in Wonderland'. With a group of 4 adults and 9 children (not all mine ;) ) to costume, as you can imagine my house has been a chaotic mess with half made outfits on every possible surface. Each child chose their character and luckily we decided on a Queen of Hearts, a Red Queen and a White queen to keep our 3 teenagers happy.

My youngest insisted that he wanted to be a soldier and was not too impressed with his Knave of Hearts outfit (no sub-machine gun :( ) until we found a photo of the knave from the Tim Burton film looking suitably menacing. My eldest son was born to be the Mad Hatter and I'm so glad that his hat was the first thing that I made although he will probably suffer from neck traumas all his life after balancing the weight of it through two long processions. Now I know why I prefer 12th scale! The Dormouse had her very own large fabric teapot to sleep in...and hide her refreshments inside! I was really proud of the pink flamingo but no one wanted to carry it!

The children spent so many afternoons over the past  6 weeks making giant teacups from papier mache and decorating our huge cake which we put together on a 'teatable' over an old laundry trolley. Under the tablecloth were even more er.,.. refreshments ;)

My friend Sandy (The Cheshire Cat) made a great job of all our make-up and we were all thrilled to bits to be awarded 1st prize for the group costumes.

And what was I in all this (apart from wardrobe mistress and bottlewasher)??? Well you may see a large blue caterpillar hovering at the back of the photos trying to keep a very low profile (I knew the Spiderman sleeping bag would be useful one of these days,lol!)

We have had a fantastic Carnival this year...hope you enjoy the piccies!