Last Minute Budget Friendly Katniss Everdeen Costume
Nothing like having to come up with a last minute budget friendly costume. This past Monday, Miss Emma came home from school with a small piece of paper to notify me of Dress like your favorite book character day.
To say that I went on panic mode is an understatement. I mean, I am all for celebrating cool stuff at school and for having special days where kids get to do something different. It certainly helps to take a little detour from the every day routine, right?
Right.
The problem was, I had exactly 2 days to pull this off, and one of those days was Valentine’s Day. So really, I had exactly 1 day to pull it off. Not an easy feat, considering I already had a ton of stuff to do, including spending Valentine’s Day morning hours taking my other daughter to a Dr.’s appointment.
Soooo, I did what all of us busy mommies do: I went to my trusty friend, Pinterest. Oh, how did I ever manage without you, my loyal problem solving friend? Honestly, I have a new found respect for Mommies who managed to raise a ton of kids, do all sorts of crafts, projects, etc., without Pinterest. Or Google, for that matter ha ha
Anyway, while desperately searching for ideas, I realized I could actually pull this off! Pinterest is usually my main source to hunt down ideas, but I also wanted to keep it as close to $0 as possible. Difficult yes, impossible, never!
Last Minute Budget Friendly Katniss Everdeen Costume
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Our favorite ideas were these:
Princess Elizabeth from The Paper Bag Princess
Miss Emma and I love this book! It is the story of a princess who looses her castle and all her possessions but never, ever looses her spirit, and her wit.
Find The Paper Back Princess book here.
Mary Poppins
Mary Poppins is a childhood favorite of mine. While I would’ve loved to dress Miss Emma as the beloved nanny, she is not that familiar with the character, plus it would’ve required a lot of digging in closets and drawers and yes, shopping!
Find the entire Mary Poppins collection here.
Find the Mary Poppins movie here.
Professor Trelawney from the Harry Potter Series
Odd, colorful and often mocked Professor Trelawney. This costume idea is super neat! I am sure I could’ve found plenty of colorful items to complete the look, but I don’t think Little E would’ve been thrilled so I didn’t bother haha.
Find the entire Harry Potter book collection here.
Find the entire Harry Potter movie collection here.
Madeline
This one was also a great choice for us. Miss Emma already owns a super cute blue dress. She also owns the long white socks and the flat black slippers.
The problem was, we didn’t already own everything we needed to make it work. That’s why, even though we love the book, we didn’t go with Madeline.
Find the Madeline book here.
Katniss Everdeen, from The Hunger Games
Amazing story line. The courage of a young girl/woman and her unwillingness to accept the unfair is her best trait. Although Miss Emma is still a bit young to enjoy the books, she is already an avid fan of the movies, just like the rest of our family 🙂
We love this series, and I personally think that Katniss is an amazing role model for young girls.
Find the complete The Hunger Games book collection here.
Find The Hunger Games 4-movie collection here.
Ms Emma & I both agreed we wanted something fierce, something that matches her fiery, empowered personality. That helped narrow it down even more. Ms Emma is a first grader, and we definitely love many characters, Dr Seuss’ included. But we wanted to make it a bit unique, something that was unlikely to be done by any of her classmates.
We decided to go with something that we could manage with what we had on hand, as opposed to buying more stuff. While I loooveeed the Paper Bag Princess idea (she is pretty bad-a, in my opinion), I had just ran out of paper to make the paper bag dress. That meant a trip to the store AND spending money. Nope. Not cool.
Our choice?
I now proudly present my little Katniss Everdeen, from The Hunger Games!
Isn’t she adorable? OK, maybe I am a tad biased but I am sure that’s to be expected, right? There she is, doing the three-finger salute, an old tradition of District 12.
Why we chose Katniss
Katniss Everdeen is one of those female characters that leaves an impression on you. While she certainly has a good, kind heart, she can be pretty ruthless when it comes to protect those she loves or the helpless.
And, being a 16-17 year old doesn’t stop her from doing everything in her power to put an end to the abuse and oppression that the people in the districts have suffered for many years.
That is exactly the kind of person I aspire my kids (and myself) to be. Strong and fair. Courageous and kind. I couldn’t feel any prouder of Miss Emma for choosing to portray Katniss Everdeen, the Girl on Fire!
Miss Emma already owned the whole ensemble, which helped make the decision a total no brainer. She wore this:
-A black long sleeve shirt
-Dark, almost black jeans
-Black boots
-Brown corduroy jacket (I would’ve preferred black but I wasn’t volunteering to go shopping and spending extra money, so brown it was!)
–Mockinjay “pin”– This was originally my bracelet, that I purchased a long time ago. I just removed the cord from both sides and turned it into a pin for her by (temporarily) sewing it to her jacket.
-I dug out a couple plastic sets of bow and arrows leftover from when she had her Brave themed birthday party a couple years ago, and which I was planning on painting black but then read the note sent from school more closely and realized they wanted “no accessories”. Bummer.
Hair style
-The braid: I am terrible at all things hair styling, unless you count pony tails or ballet buns, which I could do in my sleep 😀 I went ahead and did the best sideways braid I could manage. It doesn’t look too bad. Sort of. Luckily she is happy with the end result.
And here is Ms Everdeen, eating her breakfast before going into the Arena. Oops. School. I meant school 🙂
There you have it. A simple book character costume for $0. I’d say that’s pretty much on budget, just the way I like it 🙂 All it took was some research, imagination and digging for some “gold” items to complete the outfit! I am not the most creative person in the world, but what I am is frugal, which can be seen as limiting, but I see as practical.
Have you had to improvise for school activities on a tight budget? Share with us below. Inquiring minds would like to know!
Last minute budget friendly costume – Katniss Everdeen (DIY)
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