Knight in a night: A homemade Knight costume

 Last night at 7pm I get a text from my husband telling me our boy needed a medieval costume to go to school this morning! A what? by when? seriously?

This morning my boy went to school dressed up like the most handsome knight I have ever seen, thanks to a few common crafts items, my Christmas tree decorations, an old helmet from when he was at kindergarten and the love and creativity of his mami.

 

Here is how I did it:

Picture this - I get home after receiving said text at around 8pm and found my boy crying in bed, so sad because he did not have an outfit and his friends were going to laugh at him. Oh dear I could not make that happen. I told him that it was going to be OK, that I would figure something out. I am not sure if he believed me and to be honest - I had no clue what to do.

I went to the internet, google medieval costumes, shields, helmets, you name it and got myself a pretty good idea of what I wanted to do or better said what I COULD do with stuff lying around in my house. I got my pink basket and went "shopping" room by room. I am pleased I am a "do not through this out" person because you never know when you will need it for a craft project!

I have found the following:

• A piece of red fleece material from some blankets I made last year
• Several remnants of fleece material in various colors
• A round silver cardboard cake base/board from a previous birthday
• Lots of ribbons from my Christmas decorations including a silver one that looked just like chain mail - yeah!
• Some used yellow folders
• Iron on letters in gold
• Sharpies
• Aluminum foil
• Glue, scissors....
• My son's under armor pants and long sleeve t-shirt from his outdoor soccer outfit
• Black socks and gloves
• My son's skying balaclava mask

My bag of goods for my knight

The first thing I did was the shield as I was quite excited with my cake base find. I researched some shield designs and meaning and found a cool symbol that was put on shields to let people know you were a "first born son" so got to work on the design of the shield and the symbol.

My son wanted something with a lion, so I drew a lion on a white piece of paper with pencil. Then I outlined it with a black sharpie.

With the yellow folder, I made a cardboard shield. I painted the lion red, cut it and glue it to the yellow shield. I got some gold paper ribbon and glue it to the edges of the shield to make it more regal. My husband made 4 wholes on the cake board and put some string to make a handle. Then I glued the shield with the lion to the cake board.

I cut 2 circles from the folder, painted them red and glue the iron on letters of my son's initials on it. The circles were then glued to the board too. I covered the back of the cake board with foil and the shield was done!

Now on to the robe - this was the scary part for me as you know I cannot sew at all. I took the red fleece and cut a big rectangle to go over his shoulders. I folded it in half and with scissors I made square cuts to the bottom of the front and the back and a slit on the top for the head.

With some cream/gold fleece I made cross - just literally cut it and glued it to the red robe. I had some blue ribbons from my Christmas tree and I stapled them over the robe to make a design. (my son did not like them so they were removed in the morning very quickly)

The last details: I had a foam sword with a green handle that I simply covered in foil to make it silver. The belt was made with silver mesh ribbon from my Christmas tree and the helmet well it has been on our basement for years from an old outfit my son had in kindergarten.

Put it all together and voila! we got ourselves a knight in a night.

I laid the outfit out on his bedroom floor and went to bed. This morning I was pleasantly woken up by an excited and oh so happy 8 year old jumping on my bed, giving me cuddles and telling me I was the best mom ever!!! ohh so priceless!!