This year my son wanted to a knight in shining armor for Halloween. As we just moved back from England only 6 months ago, he hasn't quite been exposed to Superman, Batman, and all the other boyish costumes available. Lucky enough for me that I made him a knight's tunic for him for Christmas last year, so for Halloween I just needed to sort out a shield and sword.
This is the tunic and hat I made for him for my homemade Christmas present to him last year since he was kind of short on boy dress up clothes. I also made him a Peter Pan/Robin Hood and pirate outfits for him as well. I made up my own patterns for these based on similar fancy dress costumes that our little neighbor had back in England....(thanks Jack!)
I am a total advocate for recycling and using things we have around the house to make other things especially for my kiddos. Granted I could go out and pay a couple dollars for a little plastic shield for his costume but inevitably because it's cheap it will break, so making something from scratch won't make me feel so bad if it gets ruined.
How I Made the Shield:
- 1 pizza box
- rope
- glue or hot glue gun if you have it
- alligator clips (to hold pieces together while glue dries if you don't have a glue gun)
- scissors
- black, red, and gold craft paint
- paint brush
I drew out a shield shape on the top part of the pizza box and cut it out to make a pattern to draw out the second side.
Next I poked four holes in the "back" of the shield to poke the rope through.
Then I painted the "front" and "back" of the shield (one side of each shield piece).
When the paint was dry, I cut two pieces of rope about 13-14" long. Depending on where you poke your holes you'll want enough rope to be able to tie the rope and enough slack on the outside for the little one to put their arm through it. Tie knots in the rope on the inside of the shield and trim if needed.
Next I used a hot glue gun to put a bead of glue around the edges and sealed the two pieces of the shield together with the painted sides out. If you don't have a glue gun, you can use regular white glue but you'll want to use paper clips or alligator clips to hold the shield together until the glue dries.
This is what the back looked like with the little handles for the my son to stick his arm through to hold the shield.
On the front I got some inspiration from looking at some shields and crests online and then painted up something fun to coordinate with his tunic.
Making the Sword:
- Used remaining cardboard from pizza box
- black and gray paint
- chopstick (for support)
- glue
I cut out two "handles" to create added thickness to the two sword cutouts. I painted the handles black and the sword blades gray and added some accents to it. I purposely made this sword short (about 12 long) as I didn't want my little guy to go too crazy whipping it around, plus for using thin cardboard it was about as long as I'd want to go.
I glued together the two "blade" pieces by gluing around the edges to seal the edges well, but before I closed it all the way up I inserted a wooden chopstick to extend down through the handle and up through the blade for added support. Then I attached the handles on either side with glue.
Finally I added a few more embellishments on the handle and let it dry. You may also notice that the handle has some grooves in it for a nicer grip. I cut these little finger notches before I painted everything.
Disclaimer: Feel free to use any of my ideas, but I ask that you please don't reuse the picture of my kiddos...Thanks!!!
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