How to make a kids viking costume on a budget

The Trickster was invited to an awesome How To Train Your Dragon party a few weeks ago, and because he is a little obsessed with dress up at the moment (gee, where does he get that from? *wink wink*), he said he wanted to be a viking for the day. Even after being told it wasn't actually a dress up party. The kid is a fabulous.

I didn't want to spend a lot of money on a costume and I've been embracing my inner craft blogger of late, so I decided to MAKE a costume. Ambitious, much? I thought I could stitch some material together and it would be quite, ahem, rustic and therefore historically correct. Vikings didn't have overlockers, ya know!

SO I checked for some faux fur material but on my way I stumbled across this:

Oh yeah, I did. I sent my kid to a party wearing a bathmat and toilet mat set. That cost $6 in a 50% off sale at Best and Less. Classy shit.

It's kinda fur-like, and the toilet mat part was even already shaped for a vest meaning less cutting work for Miss Lazypants. I got to work, cutting the bathmat up and sewing it, occasionally holding it up to the little guy to see if it was looking vest-y. My year eight home ec. teacher would have a seizure if she knew I was using my sewing "skills" 20 years later. Related: Holy shit it's been 20 years since I started high school.

I threw the off cuts from the arm holes down and they landed in the shape of a beard and moustache... BRAINWAVE! All vikings need facial hair for historical accuracy, yes? The longer offcuts from the bath mat I kept for leg thingamajigs that I saw some of the vikings wearing in the movie. They look like legwarmers but it just doesn't sound butch enough to say viking legwarmers, does it? I grabbed some shoelaces from the supermarket for $1 to tie them on. Because vikings didn't have safety pins. I'm assured historical accuracy is fun.

Then it was on to the weapons. I was pointed in the direction of a tutorial to make viking hats (because historical accuracy can be thrown out the window if things are cute) and shields. Some late night cardboard cutting with the help of MapGuy who can trace his roots back to the vikings (which makes up for the whole viking hat thing, ya know), and some masking tape and gaffa tape produced awesome results:

All that was left was to put the whole ensemble together. It's a little rustic, but that is part of it's charm. Because I had the cardboard (a nappy box) and the two lots of tape, those parts were pretty much free, meaning my outlay for the whole project was a whopping $7.

He loved it. I loved it. People could recognize what it was meant to be, and it cost me almost nothing. That's winning in my books.