Jack, like all kids I suppose has phases where he becomes absolutely obsessed with something like Cars 2 or Thomas the tank engine, Dinosaurs or sharks. When a friend invited him to a costume party recently he was desperate to go as his new hero Mike The Knight.
Mike is on a newish show on ABC2 and has inspired in Jack a love of all things Knightly. When my brother got Jack a light saber for his birthday he proceeded to use it as a jousting stick. So I agreed to make a Mike costume with his help and together we made armour, a shield, helmet, shoes, tunic and a sword. Blue metallic cardboard worked better than expected. I'm not sure what people did before the interweb, but when it came to the helmet I googled knights helmet from cardboard and up popped instructions including a template. Giddyup! Jack was thrilled, so much so that I feared the costume would wear out before the party. However the day of the party arrived and his costume was a hit. I had prepared him for possible armour annihilation but somehow it remained pristine. Then it turned out that there was a dress up day at preschool. true it was a disney dress up day but we bent the rules so he could be a knight again. He was the only knight amongst a sea of woodys (tehe), buzz lightyears and pirates. And the armour survived!
