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First off, my son is hoarder. Oh YEAH he is. He will keep anything and everything, such as cardboard boxes that came with our online orders. He’s always stealing my copy paper. He keeps toilet paper rolls, plastic bottles and so on. Maybe I can keep this for a project”, he says. “It’s going to be amazing”, he says. Hmm…I CAN appreciate his creativity and I rationalize that they DO have trash for kids to play with at the science centers we’ve gone to. Maybe he’ll be an engineer one day or invent something with recycled materials for something amazing in a big way if I let him play with this trash, I tell myself. After a while I do have to reign it in and he has to recycle or trash some of it. By the way, somehow he eventually recruits me or his dad in his endeavors as well. Hmm…

While I was away on a girls trip, my son had the idea of making a Minecraft armor costume with cardboard. My husband ended up becoming engineer and my son was the co-engineer/designer/supervisor on this project. Haha. I have to admit I was pretty impressed when they FaceTimed me to show me what they created. Because this was an unplanned project, I don’t have step by step instructions with pictures on how cut, shaped and taped it together. Sorry. My husband just winged it and pretty wrapped card board around my son. I will provide pictures to show as much details as I can if you want to give it a try and make it yourself.

Material Used:

• Cardboard
• Clear shipping tape
• Velcro tape
• Vinyl tape

Tools Used:

• Scissors
• Box cutter

ASSEMBLED BEFORE COLOR TAPE

You can just google images of minecraft armor and you will find that it’s pretty much boxy/box shaped armor. Use image that you find most helpful with details as your guide to make each piece. For instance, the front, back and side pieces of the chest armor are all separate pieces and taped together with shipping. You cut out piece and hold up to the child or kind of “wrap” the cardboard around your child to make fit the best. Add a tabs for  closure at sides of chest plate. Also add tabs with velcro to make a chin strap under the helmet. This is so that your child and put on and take off his/her armor easily and also for it to fit comfortably when it’s worn. The weapon were hand drawn into the shape as per image on google image. Cut extra straight pieces going horizontal and vertical for both side of the weapons. See image above. This is for reinforcement to make the weapons more durable.

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Leo asked “What about the boot, Dad?” So dad made the boot. Which is just a rectangle piece of cardboard wrapped into a 3D rectangle. Again, he added a velcro closure at the opening.
Cut a perforation where you need to fold the cardboard into your desired shape. Note: This  boot was revised later to fit Leo’s leg better and for him to walk easier with it on. 

I suggested that they cover the cardboard armor with colored tape and wear it for halloween. Leo was all about that. He colored a design during his free time at school and was excited to show it to us when he got home. As you will see he changed up the colors some as they taped each section. We got a pack of tape with other colors and he liked all of the other colors as well. There are colored masking  tape and duct tape available to buy. Dad chose to buy the vinyl electric tape and we believe it was the best choice. You can remove the tape a little bit if you need to adjust it without the tape losing it’s stickiness.

FRONT CHEST ARMOR

BACK CHEST ARMOR (ADD VELCRO TO ATTACH ARMOR)

SIDE CHEST ARMOR

INSIDE CHEST ARMOR

HELMET FRONT

HELMET BACK

HELMET SIDE

HELMET TOP

BOOT FRONT

BOOT BACK

BOOT SIDE

PERFORATE A TAB TO FOLD INSIDE SIDE PANEL AND ADD VELCRO FOR CLOSURE

SWORD FRONT

SWORD BACK (VELCRO TO ATTACH TO CHEST ARMOR BACK)

AX FRONT

AX BACK (ADD VELCRO TO ATTACH TO CHEST ARMOR BACK)

FRONTBACK
BACK WITH WEAPONS ATTACHEDSIDE

I hope this has inspired you and your next diy costume. I would to see your version of this diy costume if you decide to make one too.

xoxo,

SHOP THIS POST

Last week’s part of the 30 day decluttering challenge aimed to declutter all things digital in your life. The next part of the challenge will address the physical clutter you encounter daily throughout your home. To me it’s fun to declutter, but even if it’s not fun to you yet, you will definitely feel a sense of relief and your days will flow more smoothly. This happens when you get rid of the things you don’t need and keep only the things that you use. Ready?!

Maybe it’s just me… I found organizing digital files and digital photos to be a more time consuming task than I thought. I think it will be good to add another day in the challenge to work on this. If you’re following along every day but have too much, please feel free to go at you own pace. But it’s important to push through and do it. Also, I don’t want anyone be too far behind as we have a challenge to work on every day for 30 days. You can do it!

Organizing digital files is hard. Organizing thousands and thousands of digital photos is a whole…other… level…You know what I’m talking about! But don’t get overwhelmed. Go feed the kids. Grab some tea or coffee. Take a deep breath and get started. Think of a way to reward yourself for completing this task as motivation.

It’s a digital world and we have just about every important information in our computer. We keep our personal files, work files and files for our family members.  When you’re working on a deadline or need to provide immediate information, it can be very inefficient and frustrating when you can’t find the files you need. This is a challenge for me as well. But we can get it together now so that to have it together when we need to for our family and work life.

This task may take a long time depending how unorganized your files are right now so feel free to break it down until you get to a good stopping place. Continue later the same day or next day(s). Don’t put if for long or you won’t finish.

If you’re like me, you may have thousands of photos that you need to organize. Just put them all in a photos folder for now. Wait on breaking these down for the next challenge.

There is paper coming in the house from all places. Between daily mail, work files, school work and event flyers, it’s matter of time that paper clutter will pile up if not kept at bay. The more they pile up, the more you will keep putting off the task of decluttering. The biggest thing to do is just start. Start with a stack and look at every single piece of paper. Then sort, pile, file or toss.

There’s an app for everything. Pretty much every kind of company has it’s own app. But do we really need an app for EVERYTHING? Delete the phone clutter of the apps that you DON’T use so that you can focus on the apps that you DO use. You’d be surprised of all the clutter we actually have on our phones with apps. Type how many apps you end up deleting in the comments below.

Take some time to unsubscribe, delete and organize emails now, after work or before bed. This may be a lot of work at first. After you’ve done this, take the time to delete and organize emails daily so that they don’t pile up again.