We had a busy weekend, as I suspect most people did, though we don’t do “Black Friday” shopping. There’s plenty else to do, especially when you have greatcoats on the brain, and an annual meeting to attend. By nine o’clock Sunday night, Mr S and I were unwinding while watching the Wizard of Oz, when the Young Mr announced that he had forgotten that he needed to be a tree on Tuesday. An apple tree, actually, for the Wizard of Oz segment they’re doing in theatre class.
The three of us came up with a solution involving tan or brown trousers, a green t-shirt or sweatshirt, paper leaves, Christmas ornaments and the stapler.
Fortunately, I had to run errands last night after work, so I was already headed towards the craft store, where I found a green t-shirt and three sheets each of dark and medium green paper. We drew templates on scrap cardboard and cut the brown leaves from paper bags.
And yes, picky stitcher that I am, we stapled those leaves on, and the apples, too.
The apples really are Christmas tree ornaments, left over from St. Louis when we lived in big old row house with very high ceilings, and once got a tree far too large for our living room or the number of ornaments we had.
He seems pleased enough with his quick costume. Maybe next time the Young Mr will remember just a little sooner… though I doubt it.
Kitty Calash 
That is actually a great tree costume. You could hardly have done anything more suited to the purpose if you’d had a month to plan it.
Thank you, Sharon! Sometimes the quick projects within limits force you to be more creative. I had to scrap several ideas, and I’m glad I did. No reports of wearing success yet– they didn’t get that far in class on Tuesday.
There was a segment on NPR the other day about a Dartmouth woodworking teacher and the teaching of creativity. It seemed to all boil down to Constraints and Options, creativity apparently lying in the navigation between those two parameters. So, having constraints would be a boost to the creative process.
If you have the time and the inclination and you want to get a little more fancy, you might add some cheap brown work gloves from the hardware store, with a few apples and leaves stapled to them, so his arms can be branches. Or not. The costume works just as it is!
And just think, with the green and red color scheme–I’m pretty sure that with the right styling this could work for a cheesy Christmas sweater party!