Our First DIY Halloween Costume

In the spirit of reconnecting our creativity, Kayla and I decided to DIY her Halloween costume this year.

She’s (still) obsessed with the How to Train Your Dragon series, an obsession that has just grown as we approach the end of the last book. So, she wanted to be Astrid for Halloween.

We researched some images of Astrid and decided on a look based on her wardrobe from the third film. In the picture we referenced, she’s wearing blue leggings, a red top, a fur-and-leather skirt, a cloak, boots, and furs tied around her arms and legs.

Jeans, an orange top, and boots would work for the bottom layer of the costume. For the top layer, we found most of the materials needed around the house: leftover craft foam and pleather from another project, metallic paint, a glue gun and glue sticks, and some polymer clay dots I wasn’t planning on using. We also picked up four rolls of fur trimming and a bag of small skulls from the dollar store.

I measured Kayla’s waist to knee and cut the fur trimming for the skirt. This was super messy. I’ve never seen so many balls of fluff in my life!

Next, I hot glued two layers of fur to a thick canvas ribbon, leaving enough ribbon on either side so we could tie the skirt around her waist later.

Then, I measured, cut, and hot glued the pleather layer of the skirt. Unfortunately, though it seemed sturdy enough at home, parts of the top layer of the skirt fell away as Kayla trick or treated. The glue didn’t permeate the fur as I thought it would, and tore out in clumps. Next year, I’ll try to get my hands on a sewing machine!

The skulls around Astrid’s belt might be from a small dragon or bird, but I only realised as much after I’d purchased the dollar store skulls. Luckily, we figured out that we could use the backs!

We lightly sanded the skulls before painting them in dark gunmetal silver, then added the eye sockets and mouth lines in black. I didn’t have time to make studs for the skirt, so we used polymer clay dots instead. Once we’d painted everything, we hot glued the skulls and dots to the pleather.

I also glued fur trim to the tops of pleather cut-outs for Kayla’s arms and legs. On Halloween night, we tied those in place with strips of leather and brown yarn we had at home.

I fastened the fur trim from an old winter coat around the edge of a cardigan to serve as the cloak, and I made the pauldrons from craft foam.

Astrid wields an axe in the movies, but by Halloween, Kayla’s story changed. 🤣 Hiccup and Astrid have a red-haired daughter, Zephyr, and Kayla looks the part. So, she decided she’d be Zephyr, wearing elements of Astrid’s clothing and a sword like Hiccup. She posed for photos with her jo staff but left it at home while trick or treating.