After posting about the Dalek costume that I made last Halloween, I thought I’d share a costume that I made for my little boy when he was invited to his best friend’s Batman themed birthday party early this year. It was a perfect excuse to ‘educate’ him on the original two Tim Burton Batman movies (and subsequent films), all under the guise of choosing a character to dress up as!
He picked the Riddler – and who wouldn’t, really? Jim Carrey was pretty excellent! ZANY, in fact. Zany is a word I would use for what he was, is and will always be.
However, zany aside, there are exactly zero decent kids’ Riddler costumes out there. So I had to get all crafty.
Using a cheap plastic bowler hat and green crepe paper with watered down PVA glue, I created a green hat and then fancied it up with some ribbon and a felt question mark. I made a green felt ‘mask’, which lasted on his face for all of 10 minutes, but the effect was wonderful. ^__^
I eventually found (nearly) matching green leggings and a long-sleeved shirt in H&M that I could begin doctoring into a real Riddler outfit. I found a font that I liked and printed a range of sized question marks onto card stock paper, which I then cut out with an Exacto knife and used as stencils for black fabric paint all over the leggings and shirt. For HOURS. For about 3 nights. Yup. And it involved IRONING. Ugh.
If you ever use fabric paints on something with sleeves or legs, I recommend finding an old cereal box, cutting it to size and sliding it into the item that you’re working on. I had the idea to do this before I started and sure enough, the paint bled through, which would have been a giant pain in the ass if it had ended up on the wrong side of the clothes. Let’s just pretend that I’m a pro. Giving you pro tips here.
The shirt I found had a big yellow logo on the front, so I had to do some creative designing of a large felt question mark to sew over the top of it, which is why it is so top-heavy. It came out looking kind of intentional. Hard to tell now, though, dontcha think? ^_^ I finished off the look with some orange hairspray (which also finished off my car) and we were ready to cause some serious mischief in Gotham City!
I made myself a hair bow to match his outfit and painted my nails green with a black question mark on one nail on each hand. I made a Batman bow for my friend to match the Birthday Boy, but I can’t find a picture. That’s what you get for doing this retrospectively…
Riddle me this, Riddle me that, Who’s afraid of the big, black bat?
After the party, we got some much-needed catching-up playtime between these bestest buds, who have been friends since they were 6 months old, and an equally-needed momma-catchup cup of tea. Since I started my PhD in a new city, we live much too far away, so these moments are like gold-dust.
Catriona Smith 