Sunday, July 13, 2014

Cow Appreciation Day: DIY Costumes

Friday was Cow Appreciation Day and we celebrated! Did you even know there was such a thing? Did you miss the celebration? Let me tell you-- you are missing out! The Chick-fil-a cows are by far one of my favorite marketing campaigns (I have an advertising undergrad, so I think about these things) and I find the whole concept of using cows to market a chicken sandwich restaurant quite entertaining. So one day a year, the Chick-fil-a cows host a Cow Appreciation Day for free Chick-fil-a food. I have friends who have participated for years and was determined to make it happen for us this year!


No thanks to my faulty glue gun that left us in quite the cow-costume emergency the night before, we managed to pull off some pretty decent cow costumes worthy of three free meals. Have I mentioned that I am so thankful for great neighbors that I can text and say: "We have a cow emergency! Can I borrow your glue gun?!?" 


It just so happened that this week was time for Jackson to get his allergy shot, which is real close to Chick-fil-a and so we were already going to be on that side of town. And we like to do something fun on shot days and let him choose if the fun thing is first or if it's last. (He always chooses fun thing last!). If the thought of wearing a cow costume in public was awkward enough, just add in a visit to the doctor's office. I told the kids, no mask or tails, but the office staff was highly entertained and the kids were eager to fulfill the request to see the rest of the costume.


There's something a bit ironic about wearing a cow costume as a giant pregnant lady. I certainly FEEL like a big cow most days and so on Friday, I had the pleasure of looking AND feeling like a cow.





I was expecting to see so many more families and little kids as cows, but I surprised to see so many corporate folks on their lunch break with cow attire! Cow costumes ranged from awesome to completely tacky (like an inside out black shirt with ripped up typing paper taped on). I may be biased, but I think ours ended up pretty awesome-- which was pretty much an accident.

The day before, I made a trip to Wal-Mart which long-story-short landed me with some majorly unpleasant braxton hicks contractions, so I spent the rest of the day lying on the couch and drinking water. Though I accomplished nothing of importance that day, I did manage to create our cow costumes.

1) Tails: Braided yarn-- about 12-15 threads thick. 
2) Shirts: White tanks with glued on felt spots. 
3) Masks: Inspired by this post, I used felt and pink construction paper (the one single piece of pink left!). I didn't draw any templates, I just cut. Worked good enough! I tied them on with yarn.



Total cost: $5ish. I stumbled across two random tanks for the kids in the house. They are both a size too small, but they worked! Mine is a nursing tank I unpacked recently that was on it's way to the trash, so no cost there. Felt was $.23 a sheet and I used eight, so almost $2. The yard was $2 or so. And then I just assumed that I used maybe a dollar or so in hot glue. 

The kids shirts were easy peasy. Mine however, presented challenges. Cotton stretches; felt does not. So despite having my spots close together when I glued, they'd be miles apart once I put the shirt on. But the biggest problem is that they'd just come unglued. Every time. So..... I resorted to gluing on the spots with the shirt on. I used a magazine to keep from burning myself and it was the only way it worked to get the spots on my belly. Desperate times call for desperate measures. 

If you dressed up for cow appreciation day, I'd love to see some pics!

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