Gardening guru: Costa Georgiadis was the inspiration for Karli Myers’ book week costume this year
Strike a pose: Karli Myers joined her four children in creating a book week costume to salute television gardening personality Costa Georgiadis (inset).
When it comes to dress ups Tongala mother-of-four Karli Myers is in a league of her own — often referred to by her children as the “Costume Queen’’.
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No sooner had the Kyabram P-12 College wellbeing co-ordinator packed away the Patrick Star, Storm Trooper and Buzz Lightyear costumes that her three children wore at Tongala Primary School’s book week parade than she was starting to plan for 2023.
And if you think she was about to let her children have all the fun, you have another thought coming.
She was unrecognisable as the renowned host of Australia’s most loved gardening show, Gardneing Australia, Costa Georgiadis.
Three of her children, 10-year-old Marley, Dusty, 9, and seven-year-old Sonny have been standouts for the past six years at the annual book-week celebrations.
Her youngest child, two-year-old daycare participant Buddy, appeared last week as a Galah from the book The Old Man who Swallowed the Chook.
Karli was not about to let them have all the fun and, inspired by her love of gardening, took on the persona of the bearded gumboot-wearing green thumb.
Shaun the sheep: Karli’s version of the mischevious stop-motion television series character.
Kyabram gardening enthiasts will know the North Bodi landscape graduate as host of Costa’s Gardening Odyssey on SBS before he moved across to the ABC where he became known as Costa the Garden Gnome.
Karli received a glowing endorsement from the 58-year-old with Greek origins when she made contact with him through social media.
“I sent him some photos of my outfit and he was quite impressed. I was so surprised when he replied, because he has tens of thousands of followed on social media,” she said.
Georgiadis has left the likes of Don Burke and Jamie Durie in his wake to become Australia’s most popular gardening personality.
Ned Kelly: Karli's enthusiasm for book week is shared by her children, who take their characters extremely seriously.
Karli went to extreme lengths to complete her outfit, using the recently unbraided hair of a close friend from Tongala to add to her own dark locks.
Such is her passion for a good dress up and, by extension, hence her enthusiasm for the annual book week celebration that she has dedicated an entire room of her house for preparatory work.
Dusty’s Patrick Star — a character from popular cartoon SpongeBob Square Pants — turned many heads at Tongala.
It was made out of a washing basket (the body), three witches cones (head and arms) and complimented by the character’s bright green pants.
Sonny was Buzz Lightyear, but there was no heading to a variety store to purchase a pre-prepared material uniform of the character made famous through the Toy Story movie franchise.
It was all made from scratch, her papermache skills and several pieces of cricket protective equipment used to create the popular astronaut’s space ranger suit.
Also in the mix is a barbecue tray, several cardboard components and a salad bowl.
Mandalorian: The Star Wars spin-off series was another of her creations.
In previous years SpongeBob, Mr Crabs, Shaun the Sheep and Forky (another Toy Story character) have all been prepared out of her costume hub.
Her niece, Ava, challenged her cousins for top costume when she appeared as a bloated purple version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory character, Violet Beauregarde.
She is the daughter of Karli’s older brother Adam.
“I take the whole thing very seriously. We generally start planning in May,” she said.
SpongeBob: Among the most popular characters in the Myers household lives in a pineapple under the sea.
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