Day 4 Zombie Survival Kit

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.

     

The rope sweets wrapped to look like
a crow bar

Kinder Eggs wrapped to look like hand grenades (not very
convincing I know, but it was the best I could do!

Wine gums wrapped in red paper and tied together with
cross stitch thread to look like dynamite

Meerkat gummy sweets

All the "explosives" in the same tin. I just googled the image
and stuck it on with double sided sticky tape

Tubes of Smarties. I got the symbol off google images and
just typed the text into word

Chocolate cigar "for use only when the end is nigh"

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.

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!)

This image was taken from google images, printed and wrapped
around a box of matchsticks

I put most of the "equipment" in one tub

With the hip flask

And the socks

Box of rations

Socks rolled to look like bandages

Tub of "Cotton Balls"

Box of Kinder Eggs hippos. The image was from google images

Tub of dolly mixture

Once I'd made everything look how I wanted them to, I got a cardboard box with a removable lid, then wrapped it in white paper, printed out a Zombie Survival Kit label, which I got from google images, and stuck it to the lid. Then I just had to fit everything in. It took a few goes to get it all in, but I was massively proud with the result.

Everything inside the box. By the way that weird looking thing in the right
hand corner is the marshmallow rope!

And with the "So you're facing a Zombis attack?" pack that I wrote

And with the lid on!

James (the boyfriend) was pretty chuffed too, phew! Now the pressure is on for him to come up with something equally as good for my birthday in October!