King of the Castle

When I was selecting playground equipment for my daycare, I wanted to make sure I had something my 6 year old could play with too. I couldn't put in a big slide or anything because I can't tear up my lawn and put in protective surfacing like wood chips or gravel, so I had to stick with stuff that had a platform no higher than 2 feet. I let my 6 year old pick out a playhouse. He decided he wanted a castle, "So I can be the king."

I'm not sure why that didn't occur to me as a bad idea ;) but thankfully he has been very nice about it. The one thing he insisted on was having a costume. We have a bunch of princess dress up clothes we picked up at our local thrift store for next to nothing, but we didn't have anything boys could wear.

I whipped up this outfit in very little time. It started out as a tablecloth we never used. I cut a hole out of the middle to go over his head, then tied grey crushed velvet ties on the shoulders to cinch it up. Very flowy and Julius Caesar like, if you ask me. A tie at the waist holds everything in place. The one accent I spent a lot of time on was the crest. It matches the crest on the castle. I used waxed paper to trace the design on the crest, then layered that over red and yellow flannel and began stitching with my machine. I had intended to cut around all the lion very closely, but my machine was acting up and I couldn't get a good tight stitch. I had a miserable time getting the waxed paper off, but eventually was able to remove most of it. It would have turned out much nicer if I had hand embroidered it, but it is just a costume that is meant for outside, and he wanted it right away. Anyway, for a quick project, I think it came out really well. He made the crown himself. We aren't supposed to have play weapons in our daycare, so I didn't buy him one. He improvises with a foam noodle.

PS - He's not in pain. He's trying to do his impression of a fierce king who cannot be defeated in battle. :)