Homemade Halloween - LEGO Ninjago Ninja

This year it is all about Ninjago for my son.  At first he wanted to be Kai, the red ninja but he has changed his mind and decided to be the Green Ninja.  He was adamant that we make his costume and who am I to argue.  While we focused on the Green Ninja, the idea would work for any of them.

Image:  Voodoolady

I saw this amazing Ninjago party over at A Lemon Squeezy Home which is where I learned how to make the Ninjago mask. If you are ever planning a Ninjago party, you have to visit this link to get some major inspiration!

 I had planned to find some material and sew up a mask but she showed me how to make one using a plain t-shirt!!!  Seriously, you don't cut, sew or modify the t-shirt at all.  You simply follow the photo instructions below. 

Image & Instructions: A Lemon Squeezy Home

After seeing this I grabbed a t-shirt out of my son's drawer and  tried it immediately.  This is what ensued that school morning.  Needless to say, he was over the moon and getting his clothes on became a low priority.

The body portion of the costume was all his own doing. He asked me for a cardboard box one afternoon and explained exactly what he wanted. After it was cut out, we grabbed some craft paint, his Ninjago character for a model and got to work.

Painting his costume was a 2 part job. As you can see, the ninja moves were already in full swing.  First he painted the background of the cardboard green.  He used a foam roller which made the painting job quick, easy, and even.  We let that dry over night. 



My ninja - ready to paint!

After that, it was the detail work.  He took great care to ensure that it looked just like his Ninjago character.  In fact, you can see below that he would often check back to make sure he was on track.  And yes, the mask stayed on the entire time.  He was very much in character.  We sketched it out lightly with pencil then he used a foam brush for the black and light green lines and a wine-cork to stamp the white dots on the shirt.

We found some green pants and he'll wear a green long sleeved t-shirt as well.  Looking at it now I can see that I need to paint the underside of the cardboard green too.   Finding time when it isn't on his body is proving difficult.  I'll have to do it while he's at school.

The Green Ninja - LEGO Ninjago costume

I personally love that you can tell that he made it.  It isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination but in his mind it is sublime!  What more can you want?

Materials Needed:

• Cardboard box
• Scissors
• Craft paint - ninja colour, black and white
• Foam paint roller
• paint brush
• wine cork (optional)
• T-shirt - in the colour of the ninja (you can turn a shirt with a logo inside out for this)
• Clothes in the colour matching your ninja

You will have the majority of the supplies needed for this costume already in your house. This makes it a really inexpensive costume.  You can't see it in the photos but we also made him a sword.  We cut out the shape from leftover cardboard and then covered it in shiny gold wrapping paper we purchased at the dollar store. 

Happy Halloween everyone! 

Did you have a homemade costume as a child that still resonates with you?