How to Make a Cardboard Knight Helmet

Children love to play imagination games about knights and castles. A cardboard knight helmet can be a great addition to your child’s dress-up wardrobe. This one is based on a helmet used by many Crusader knights, and it's not hard to make.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

• 2 pieces of corrugated cardboard
• Pencil
• Pattern shown in steps
• Scissors, sharp craft knife or serrated kitchen knife
• Duct tape
• Gray or silver acrylic paint
• Paintbrush
• Permanent marker

1. Use a 25-by-10 inch piece of corrugated cardboard and the pattern shown here as a guide to cut the main helmet piece. Scissors may work well for the outside edges, whereas the sharp craft knife will be needed for the eye slit. The knife can be used for all the cutting, however, if the scissors don’t work well.
2. Fold the cardboard at the center, making a sharp crease.
3. Gently bend and roll each side of the helmet, creasing along the corrugate lines, so that it forms a cylindrical helmet shape. Secure with duct tape on the back seam, taping both on the inside and the outside.
4. To make the top of the helmet, place the helmet upside-down on a 8-by-10 inch piece of cardboard. Adjust the shape of the helmet so that it is slightly oval and looks like the picture shown here. Use a pencil or marker to trace around it then cut out this piece.
5. Secure this top piece using lots of small pieces of duct tape, about 1 or 2 inches in width. Press and smooth each piece of tape so that any wrinkles are pressed down. (Wrinkles are unavoidable. Just smooth them the best that you can.)
6. Paint the helmet with silver or gray acrylic paint.
7. You may want to add the gold cross decoration, using gold acrylic paint. For additional realism, you can also use a permanent marker to add dots to the cheek area for "air holes."

Tips & Warnings

• The size of the helmet can be made larger or small by making the width of the main pattern piece more or less than 25 inches.
• Make sure the corrugate lines in the cardboard are running top to bottom (forehead to chin), not across. This will make folding the cardboard much easier.
• Be careful in cutting the cardboard. Craft knives are very sharp and should be used only by an adult.