It was School Dress-up day the other week and the boys wanted to go as Mandalorian's. We had the Bounty Hunter Helmets already made but just needed to make some armour for them. They wanted armour that they could wear all day (during classes and playtime), so this cardboard costume had to be comfortable and functional.
That's when we came up with this idea of sewing cardboard armour onto an old jumpers/sweater. The trick was to hide the stitching so it didn't actually look like we had sown it on. I say "we" because their Dad (being very invested in this particular costume himself, as he is a huge Mandalorian / Boba Fett fan himself) actually came up with the idea of sewing the costume on and hiding the stitching.
This meant that the costume armour had to have two layers of cardboard. One layer of cardboard for the stitching and the second layer of cardboard for depth/detail, as well as working as a cover to hide the stitching.
I really liked this cardboard costume because we didn't need to buy anything new, we up-cycled things we already had in the house. In fact we recycled their old Sweater/Jumpers that still fitter but were a bit tight. This worked well with the armour because a larger sweater/jumper would have meant the armour would have been too loose and floppy.
How to make a cardboard armour costume
Things we used for this Cardboard Armour costume:
- Armour Template
- Single walled cardboard (5mm thick)
- Glue gun https://amzn.to/3MlT9i9
- Hot glue sticks https://amzn.to/3Xfe8rE
- Craft Blade https://amzn.to/3X4Zsvb
- Blu-tack https://amzn.to/3yMtqMJ
- Scissors https://amzn.to/3ThKilj
- Ball point pen
- Yarn needle https://amzn.to/3APDV2l
- Cotton Twine https://amzn.to/472eJSd
- Old Black Sweater/Jumper
The above links are to amazon products we currently use for making cardboard costumes. (they may differ from the video) but please use whatever is available, these are suggestions.
The best thing about making costumes out of cardboard for kids is that once you’ve built the base framework, the decorating and customisation can be completely handed over to them. The boys had so much fun painting their own cardboard costumes exactly how they wanted. They knew precisely the look they were going for and added their own unique details to bring the costumes to life. When they wore them to school, they were so proud of what they had created and honestly, they truly believed they were real Mandalorians.
It was such a fun way to dress up as their favourite Mandalorian and Boba Fett characters. I think they have ranked it as one of the best cardboard costumes I've made them. So much so they will be wearing them for their Halloween costumes this year.
Check out this short little video on how the cardboard armour template comes together.
By Zygote Brown Designs