Ninja Turtle Costume

There are some things in this life that Gavin absolutely LOVES!! Batman is of course way up there, the Wii and Lego get top billing too, and recently Ninja Turtles are creeping into the top ranks. But there's one thing he might love even more than any of these things, and that is to dress-up in costumes! This boy would wear costumes all day long if I let him. Honestly, he has worn costumes to Costco, out bike riding, when camping, swinging in the back yard, eating meals, going to Baba and Gramps' house, and probably more than that too. I thought to myself a couple months back "Gavin could sure use a Ninja Turtles costume", and the hunt began... it was pretty limited though. There are not many costumes in stores in May or June, so I had to look on-line, but the options there were also pretty minimal and not worth the expense. Somehow I got it in my head that I would MAKE him a Ninja Turtles costume. Why do I do these things to myself? First of all, I CAN'T SEW. Not a stitch, I don't hem pants or patch holey-knees. Once I attempted to close a hole in one of Gavin's costumes and the outcome was atrocious! But, I digress. The question was "how do I make a Ninja Turtles costume when I'm completely sewing-illiterate?" The answer - I make it out of paper-mache, paint, and old clothing!
What an undertaking this thing turned out to be. I may or may not have stayed up until 3am to get it finished for Gavin's birthday. Who needs sleep anyway? My Grandpa always said "you can sleep when you're dead".

The Shell I made with paper-mache, using the lid of our turkey roasting pan as the base to give me the right shape. I tried to make it look more turtley and less roasting pan-ish by putting extra paper around the edges for a rounded edge. I started it days and days in advance so it would dry completely between layers of paper-mache.

That was time consuming, but the last night of painting and putting the finishing touches on it was a killer!!! I nearly didn't have it done for him to open on the morning of his birthday. Well, actually I really didn't have it done in time, the staff-holder wasn't attached, it was put into the gift bag with the promise of attaching it later that day when I figured out the right place to put it on the shell.
I actually found a little Donatello set at a store, this included the purple mask, the staff and two throwing stars - perfect, just a shell and green shirt to go! The green shirt turned out to be hard to come by, mostly because I wanted it to be long-sleeved and there is only summer clothing on the shelves currently. My mom was great at keeping her eye out for this one, she found a shirt for me just in the nick of time.
I painted the front of the green shirt with fabric paint to give it the look of the turtle's carapace, and finally used two old belts to strap the shell onto Gavin. The belts gave me a small amount of trouble, I thought at first I could use a hot glue gun to secure the belt onto the shell - nope, that was a major fail. I ripped part of the paint job trying to do it that way. I thought about using small strips of paper mache to keep the belt in place, but I didn't have the time necessary to dry it and repaint it. So I ended up cutting small slits in the sides of the shell and laced the belts through those. The belt the goes diagonally across the chest really holds everything in place, and that was added after the gift was given to Gavin so I could get the length of it right.

Overall, mission completed on this little big project. Gavin is having a blast being Donatello, and he even lets Levi in on the fun (sometimes, when Levi screams loud enough).