Teach Them Tuesday: Homemade Viking Costume

Hello, friends! I told you yesterday that I’d be sharing more boy adventure posts this week. Well, what could be more adventurous than going back in time to sail with the Vikings?!

Kids love to dress up! When my girls were growing up, we had a whole cabinet dedicated to their dress-up clothes, packed full of princess dresses, colonial and medieval gowns, native American apparel, jewels, crowns, hats–you name it. My son is still young enough to enjoy dressing up and has a tub in his closet for his hero costumes. Through the years, my kids have dressed up for everything. If they read a book, watched a movie, or learned something in history, they suddenly wanted to be their favorite character from the story, and costumes definitely added to the experience, making them feel more authentic!

Back in the fall, my son and I studied the Vikings in his history course. While the Vikings were a bit rough around the edges and may have delighted a little too much in splitting skulls, it’s still a fascinating time in history. And hey, they did eventually settle down and many were even led to Christianity.

My uncle once traced our family line back to a Viking named–get this–“Thorfin the Skull Cleaver”! No kidding!! You didn’t know my family had a shady past, did you? Ha! Naturally, we had to construct a costume as we studied this place on our timeline, but my son assured me he was a good Viking!

So, here’s how to make a Viking costume!

For the helmet, I cut a 3″ wide strip of poster board, measured to fit around his head. I stapled it together on the ends to make a circle. I then added 1 1/2″ strips criss-crossing them into a dome shape, stapling each end to the round band I’d already made.

The idea of Vikings wearing horns on their helmets has actually been debated by historians, but they’re cool so we added them! I used toilet paper rolls, twisted on the ends, for the horns. I then taped them onto the helmet frame.

I got my son to help me cut strips of paper (newspaper works best, but I didn’t have any so I used this packing paper).

I made a simple paper mache paste of 2 cups water, 1 cup flour, and a pinch of salt. I’ve used the glue version as well, but we didn’t have enough Elmers that day, so I went with the flour mixture.

Because our hands got very messy, I could not snap photos of us applying the paper mache strips, so if you want to see a tutorial of other people’s projects, you can just google, and I promise there will be plenty to watch. Below is the almost finished product. We let it dry a lonnnnngg time.

Next, I let my son paint the helmet a dull silver and the horns a cream.

Once the paint was dry, we added strips of fur fabric with hot glue. There is a secret to cutting the fur fabric which I’ll show in just a minute.

Now for the Viking vest! We ran into Hobby Lobby and picked out anything with Viking vibes–fur, wool, suede, and leather.

I didn’t have a pattern, so I used the t-shirt method of making a pattern. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a way to take a t-shirt that fits a little big on the child and use it to make a pattern. Again, there are plenty of tutorials on the internet on how to do this, so just google something like “t-shirt vest pattern”. All of my pattern paper was packed away, so I just used parchment paper and it worked very well.

You’ll notice that this fabric has two sides: the wooly side (not real wool) and the suede side. We wanted the suede on the outside and I sewed outer sides together to make a seem that exposed the wool along the edges. Very cool.

I forgot to take a picture of the finished vest at this point, but you’ll see it in the final photos.

Now for the furry wrist and leg bands! Ok, so it’s very important to not just cut straight into the fur or you’ll have a mess if you do. On the back of your fur fabric, draw your cutting line. Then, with a pair a good scissors, try to cut into just the fabric backing and avoid cutting the fur. There’s no need to cut the fur because once you cut the fabric backing, the fur goes with it. If you cut through the fur, chunks will continually fall out while you work and you will want to scream. You’ve been warned.

Below is an example of strips cut both ways to show you what they look like. The one on top was cut the right way, just through the fabric backing. The one on the bottom was cut the wrong way, through the fabric and fur. See how much more natural the top one looks.

I cut wide bands of the fur to fit nicely around his wrists and ankles and simply secured them with safety pins. The pins don’t show because the fur covered them. I then added leather laces in criss-cross patterns over the fur and tied them in knots for that rugged effect. For the shirt, I purchased a large brown t-shirt from Hobby Lobby, cut a slit at the top and wove a leather lace through it, also in a criss-cross pattern, tying at the top. I found a leather belt in my girls’ old dress-up cabinet (now in the attic) that went with a Native American dress I’d made my daughter when she was nine (memories–sigh). It worked perfectly! Lastly, I cut out a beard from the fur and attached an elastic band to hold it onto his face.

And here’s our Viking warrior!

Below you get a better idea of the detail in the vest seams and fur bands.

Look what a fierce Viking, he is! Are you scared yet?

But I guess he’s not too tough for trick-or-treating with his friends! I told you those Vikings settled down.

To see our Celtic warrior costume from earlier in the year, click here.