For our family costume theme this year we did: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Clearly a Chronicles of Narnia inspired idea.
The lion costume came from Amazon for about $20. I had a black dress, and my mini witch hat was $8 and my gold leggings to match were $10 - all from Amazon as well.
The wardrobe was made from two pieces of those cardboard project boards. The tri-fold ones. They were about $5 each from my local craft store.
We measured the width of my husband (person wearing the costume) and used a measurement that would still allow his hands to fold all the way around in front of him.
We cut that measurement out of each middle section of the project boards to be the "base" of the wardrobe. We used the flaps and excess from the middle to make the "moldings."
My brother-in-law cut the molding out with curvy edges for an artistic effect. This was also just easier, in my opinion, because we didn't have to worry so much about straight edges. We cut out molding pieces to go along each side of the base, and then a wider pieces for the middle to be the doors.
We traced one side of a bowl side by side to make the "mustache" top, and then just swooped it down and back out to a point - and this made the top of the wardrobe.
Once all of those pieces were cutout as separate pieces, I glued them down onto the 'base' using wood glue. I glued all of the vertical pieces down first, and then the top and bottom pieces, and then the mustache top.
I let it dry overnight and then painted it using an acrylic paint in a cinnamon brown ($2), and I painted it on with a sponge brush ($2).
I only had to do one layer of paint, because the boys liked the sort of sketchy effect it had. They said it made it more wood like.
Grabbed some knobs and knob plates from my local hardware store (about a $10 purchase), and screwed them on after drawing a line down the middle for the doorway with a brown marker.
Then, just used some brown twine to make 'straps,' and taped it down on the front/back pieces of the wardrobe.
And, tada! Costume!
It wasn't perfect, but it turned out pretty cute I thought.
I wish I'd documented more details and done progress pictures (sorry). But, maybe this will be enough to get you in the right direction if you're trying to make a quick, easy, and fairly cheap wardrobe costume.
All in all the wardrobe costume itself was about $25. For the theme as a whole we were only out about $65.
Pretty sweet, in my opinion.
Because it's an artsy photo if you're going for the Narnia theme ;)
