Coolest Lion in Cage Costume

Grrr. There is a very scary lion in this cage! Do not feed! Lion will attack! This costume was for Zoo Day at my school.

Materials:
BIG cardboard box
Tubes that are used on large paper rolls (talk to any store that carried large paper rolls)
Orange boa
Orange, black, and yellow paint
Ivy
Computer and printer

This was the combination of a few ideas. I wanted to be a lion but just being a lion was not cool enough, so I added the cage element. I got a refrigerator box from my local appliance store and cut out the front. Then, I bought the paper tube rolls in just the right size so that they were the same height as the box. I glued these in with hot glue, adding paper to some of the tops of the tubes to adjust the height to be exactly right. Then I painted the box and tubes inside and out and cut a hole in the bottom for me to stand.

For the lion, I made the mane out of a boa and created a mask with heavy paper and brightly colored paint. I made the pants and shirt out of yellow fabric as well. Then, I glued ivy around the edges of the cage and even put in speakers that played “The lion sleeps tonight”.

Finally, I found all the danger signs off the Internet I could, and plastered the back of the cage with warnings of all kinds.

People at my school were really impressed and I think this was definitely one of my favorite costumes ever.