This year we worked with Orinoco, The Oxfordshire Scrapstore based in Banbury and Oxford  to explore making costumes using materials that otherwise would have been thrown away.

The children arrived for their hour long slots with t-shirts to decorate and a team of brilliant volunteers helped create a world of characters giving children the opportunity to stick with their favourite character even if they were a bit less well known. They made cats, dinosaurs, fairies, a Highway Rat and even a cake!

Orinoco’s top tips were:

• Focus on features – with lots of requests for characters from The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse, by Charlie Mackesy we discovered noses, ears and tails made a strong character
• Embellish what you have- having a t-shirt as a base meant there was less need for complicated sewing
• Capes are great to create animals and can be sewn onto the back of a t-shirt
• Give wings and hats structure using foam or even hula hoops

Scrapstores are located throughout the country.  You can find your nearest scrapstore at https://www.reusefuluk.org/scrapstores-directory