Cardboard Knight Costume

My son asked me a knight costume for shrove tuesday.

I am used to do the costume for that day by myself so I started to look how I could do it. As my son is only 3 yo I aldso wanted to spend some time in a father/son activity making him proud to wear what he actually build.

If you only have Grocery / Delivery cardboard boxes, that I'ble is made for you!

Step 1: Building the Crown

First step was to build the Crown. A pretty easy step.

First I measured my son head in order to have its perimeter. Then I used carboard to obtain a band with perpendicular layers. Once cut, I joined the layers using stapples and hot glue to obtain the base of the crown.

I checked periodically that the size was fiting well my son's head.

Once done you obtain a kind of wolly hat. I used another piece of cardboard to cut the outer shape of the crown. I simply hot glued it on the front of the hat.

Painting (with childrenproof paint).

Done.

Step 2: Shield and Sword

Shield and sword are a major part of a knight costume. I did mine pretty easly using this technique. It allows to make those 2 parts really rigid, while not too much not to hurt other children but strong enough not to break after 5 min.

So I simply glued cardboard sheets and then cut the shape of the sword and shield. I glued cardboard rolls for my kid to hold the shield.

To finish the sword and make it more pro I cut a round into a soft cardboard to put it in shape and glued it over the handle.

I painted it with my son. I used stencil for the Lion.

Step 3: Armor

I simply cut the armor into a Delivery cardboard box. I adapted the size to my son by cutting the flange and regluing them at the right dimension.

I took into account the fact that he will have to parade with his coat.

My son did paint the red and grey area. He also did the Lion using the same stencil as previously. Some more work on my part to be able to have a beautiful coat of mail and we were almost done.

Step 4: Finishing

If you are living in a dry country then you can stop here.

I am not living in a particularly dry area, at least at that time of the year.

So I decided to varnish the costume, first to avoid the paint to run all down the costume and my son and to make it a little more stronger in case of rain.

I used spray sealer without solvent.