Modern Day Viking Family

That's us! From a previous post you can understand how we came to be vikings for this Halloween. I have to say that this was one of my favorite costumes that we have ever done. And it was a true family affair from start to finish as we all had a hand in creating our "authentic" costumes.




We started with paper mache helmets. Unfortunately I can't get the cool pictures that Grandma W took to download. She is the paper mache master and even had Peelu working on it. We had an old play viking helmet that we were going to use for Peelu (although it's not as authentic because it has horns on it) but we did make paper mache helmets for myself, Ross, Lil Mermaid and Hot Rod. We used balloons so they came out a bit...round. Ross didn't think they looked cool enough so he re-shaped them a bit with more paper mache and then worked on customizing them at the local viking hattery:



Then he sweated like Vulcan (oops, sorry that's Roman), like Thor, in the armory to create these awesome swords and shields. (We thought it best that Peelu NOT have a sword!):




Ross is a versatile craftsman and also decorated and painted the shields himself:


However, the rest of us were no slouches either. Grandma W (our master family costumer) sewed up all of the tunics for us (in practical and cheap fleece). And then Ross browbeat her...I mean, persuaded her...to make him a fantastic wolf hide cloak. And so she and Peelu had to stay up until the wee hours of the night, sewing their little fingers to the bone for him.....



And contrary to popular belief, I did more than just supervise! I cut out and hand sewed cloaks and decorated the tunics and cloaks with gold and jewels and used some old woolly fleece, burlap and faux leather to make straps and belts and leg braces.



AND....I created this fabulous viking beard for Hot Rod. I used the same pattern from this post and added on the beard and the braids at the bottom.



And voila...here we are in our finest viking regalia, ready to sack a candy factory or celebrate a berserker victory!





Do we love Halloween or what?