Thomas the Tank Engine

One year it's Cranky the Crane, another it's Thomas the Tank Engine.  This familiar character is well loved by many children, and mine were certainly no exception.

It took a little while to think up the concept, but eventually I hit upon treating the train as a vehicle, and dressing the boy up as an engineer.  We did, however, print out a gray scale version of his face to use on the front of the engine, and made it number '10' for family reasons.

This costume was crafted primarily from cardboard, and was challenging more for the sheer size of it than anything else.  Rather than paint, we used craft foam to give it the color, and I was really very pleased with the overall results.

The proud engineer about to get on board

We used a plastic garbage bag crumpled up to simulate coal.

The best part is that by its very nature, the costume came with a built in place to store all of the treats he received from the neighbors.

Cranky the Crane

If you have kids, you probably know about the Island of Sodor, with Thomas the Tank Engine and all the associated characters.  My older son decided he just had to be 'Cranky the Crane'.  This put me into a funk for a while, as I gave thought to how I would pull it off.  I think I succeeded in the end.

Construction of the costume was almost entirely cardboard, hot glued into shape and spray painted gray.  IIRC, the black areas were just sharpie marker.  At the base of the crane, I left the four sides unattached so that his legs would have some freedom to move, which was partially successful.  The bucket was simply hung from some string.

All of the pictures I have of this one came from the parade his elementary school held that year, starting in the classroom after getting dressed up.  The fact that he actually managed to walk all the way around the schoolyard means the thing basically worked.

Clearly he was in a very happy place wearing this, and enjoyed putting on a show for everyone.  The reactions to his costume were very positive, too.