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.
Things we used for this Cardboard Armour costume:
~ Armour Template (click the link below)
~ Single walled cardboard (5mm thick)
~ Glue gun and glue sticks
~ Craft Blade ~ Blu-tack
~ Scissors ~ Ball point pen
~ Yarn needle and Cotton Twine
~ Old Sweater/Jumper
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.
If you want to recreate this costume and watch me walk you through how to sew and put the cardboard armour together. You can purchase the template with the link above.
The boys had so much fun and painted their own cardboard costumes just how they wanted. They knew exactly how they wanted them to look and added their own details to the costume. When they went to school they were so proud of their costumes and I think that they thought they were actual Mandalorians.
If you wanted to purchase both the Bounty Hunter helmet and Armour costume templates you can. If purchased together you can get a discount using the link below:
Check out this short little video on how the cardboard armour template comes together.
