This is a challenge that I have really been looking forward to doing and I've been planning it for a couple of weeks. The 29th is (or was) my boyfriends birthday, he is now the big 2 6 and is not necessarily overjoyed at this, so I wanted to do something fun for his birthday present that would make him feel like a bit of a kid again. There are three things you need to know about my boyfriend for this to make sense: firstly, he will always choose lots of little presents over one big one (there's more to open that way!); secondly, he loves sweets of pretty much any kind; and thirdly, he is a little bit mad on zombie horror, in fact World War Z by Max Brooks is one of his favourite books.
Anybody guess where this is going? Well you may or may not have seen
this pin that has popped up a few times on Pinterest, it's a Zombie Survival Kit that a dad made for his sons birthday, and quite frankly, it's genius! I spotted it a couple of months ago and have been sitting on the idea for a couple of months, and last week I finally got to put it together. It took a fair bit of planning because I needed to have a flick through Max Brooks "Zombie Survival Guide" which goes with World War Z and which my boyfriend also has to see what you actually need to survive a Zombie attack. Then I had to work out what I was going to use in place of all the weapons and equipment that Brooks suggests. This is the list I came up with:
Weapons
Super soaker (one that looks a bit like a machine gun)
A small plastic gun that shoots lightweight plastic balls
A giant bubble maker in the shape of a dagger
Rhubarb and custard rope sweets that I wrapped in tin foil and bent to look like a crow bar
Two kinder eggs wrapped in a bit of black bin liner to look like hand grenades
Three rolls of wine gums wrapped in red paper to look like sticks of dynamite
Gummy Meerkats put in a tin labelled "Ammunition"
A pack of small black rubber bouncy balls that could be small explosives (to be honest I just bought these because I thought they would be fun!)
Equipment
Hip flask (in place of a water canteen)
Long marshmallow rope tied to look like an actual length of rope
Tubes of smarties wrapped in red paper to look like emergency flares
Pack of batteries
A lighter
A chocolate cigar
A tube of sweets in spray form wrapped to look like a torch
Socks (he always needs new socks on account of constantly putting holes in them. Plus Brooks did recommend spare socks)
A round tub of bubblegum tape made to look like a compass
A box of matchsticks (the sweets) wrapped to look like matches
A Terry Pratchett book that he wanted for something to read to cheer him up during the Zombie attack!
Rations - two packs of raw jelly, two mars bars and a packet of dried apricots
First Aid
Socks rolled to look like bandages
A tub of marshmallows labelled "Cotton Balls"
A pack of Kinder Egg hippos wrapped to look like antiseptic wipes
A tub of dolly mixture labelled "Antibiotics"
I also wrote a sort of cover letter, check list and advice pages, which were just a bit of fun, you could make your own up.
I though I would post some images of the sweets so you could see how I made them look like Zombie survival equipment.
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The rope sweets wrapped to look like
a crow bar |
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Kinder Eggs wrapped to look like hand grenades (not very
convincing I know, but it was the best I could do! |
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Wine gums wrapped in red paper and tied together with
cross stitch thread to look like dynamite |
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Meerkat gummy sweets |
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All the "explosives" in the same tin. I just googled the image
and stuck it on with double sided sticky tape |
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Tubes of Smarties. I got the symbol off google images and
just typed the text into word |
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Chocolate cigar "for use only when the end is nigh" |
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Spray sweet wrapped to look like a torch. I coloured a piece
of white paper with a yellow crayon and then wrapped it
over the end before wrapping the paper round the top. Then
I cut a little piece of paper to look like a switch. |
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I printed a picture a compass face, then cut it out and stuck it
to the top of the tub of bubblegum tape (sorry for the awful
image, I blame the camera!) |
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This image was taken from google images, printed and wrapped
around a box of matchsticks |
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I put most of the "equipment" in one tub |
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With the hip flask |
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And the socks |