The Avengers Homemade Hawkeye Costume

May 4th 2012 was a great day! The Avengers came out in the theater. After researching the movie, we decided we were going to let our kids see the movie since they were both begging us to watch it! Yes, even my 3 year old daughter was begging to see it, she LOVES Hulk! If you ask my opinion about children seeing the movie, I would say it depends on your child. If they tend to get scared and have nightmares, it's not for them! Our kids have seen a lot of action and it doesn't affect them in that way. We also had great conversations, after watching the movie, about good and evil and about team work (because all of the Superheros, together, get more accomplished then when trying to do it alone)! One more thing, the movie is 2 1/2 hours long so you couldn't force most little kids to sit that long for a movie. My daughter fell asleep the last hour.
If you are an adult and haven't seen the movie, you are missing out! I'm not that into this stuff and it kept my interest the WHOLE 2 1/2 hours! I now want to see the other movies!

 This movie introduces us to a character most don't know much about, HAWKEYE! Marvel comics drew him with a blue and purple costume but the movie has him dressed in mostly black. My son fell in love with him! After the movie, all he could talk about was shooting a bow and arrow and dressing up like Hawkeye!

   

My husband and I had been discussing how to make a bow for Brenden just so he could pretend. So one day after my husband came home from work, he broke a small branch off our front tree and pulled all the little branches off. Then he got some rope and used his staple gun to attach it to each end. Brenden LOVED it and was playing outside, pretending to shoot arrows at bad guys. Our neighbor Chris came home and we got to talking about the Avengers movie and Bow and Arrows. He has a bunch of REAL "toys" that he brought out to show us. Most of them Brenden couldn't even pick up! As we talked, Chris had a great idea to make a Bow out of PVC pipe. After the conversation, we continued to play outside with other neighbor friends. The next thing we know, Chris comes back in a half hour with all the parts to make the bow and arrows!

**This is where I take a second to BRAG about how COOL my neighbors are! I can't believe how much God has Blessed us with being surrounded by great people! I LOVE where we live and everyone around us!!!**

The first attempt with a PVC bow, we used 1/2 inch PVC pipe. We found that it was a little weak in the center and the bow ended up breaking. The instructions below are for the updated version. Which has been used and played with by many children and holds up!

Parents and caregivers, now you finally have easy and cheap instructions to make your child a bow and arrow which REALLY works and is safe to shoot! I still recommend supervision and ALWAYS with the rule of not shooting towards people!

Hawkeye PVC Bow and Arrows
 Here is what you will need:

• 3/4 inch PVC Pipe  (4 feet)
• 3/4 inch PVC Cross Connector
• PVC cement/primer Combo
• 4 1/2-5 feet braided nylon string
• Black Gorilla or duct tape
• 3/8 Oak Dowels (one makes two arrows)
• 5/8 Rubber Chair Tips (one per arrow)
• Hot glue or 2 inch squares of felt (two per arrow)
• **Optional Black Spray Paint**

First thing you need to do is cut down your PVC pipe into two equal pieces, 2 feet long each.

The next step is optional, if you are making a "Hawkeye" Bow, you will want to spray paint your PVC pipe and connector black. Let dry and then prime and cement together with the PVC glue.

After the primer and cement dries, you can add support by taping the center with black Gorilla tape or duct tape. When you shoot the bow most of the pressure is on the center, that is why this is a good idea. It also gives the Bow a cool look!

Next, drill a hole in both ends of the PVC pipe. This is where your string will be attached.

For this next step you either need two people or one really strong person. To attach the string tie a knot at one end and burn the end of the rope to prevent fraying. When you are ready to tie a knot at the other end you need to bend the bow a little. You can see an example of this in the picture on the left. Chris is pretty strong so he was doing it by himself but what I suggest is one person bend the bow while the other pull the string tight and then tie a good tight knot. After the string is attached, put a little tape over your knot and extra string, as pictured on the right.

   

We also added a little tape above and below the center of the string. This will help show your child where the arrow goes.

How to Make the Arrows

Cut the Oak Dowels in half with a chop or hand saw. The ones we got were 36 inches long, which makes the arrows about 18 inches long each!

The next step is to take your rubber chair tips and attach them to one end of the dowel. We used two, 2 inch square pieces of felt and pushed the rubber tip down over the dowel with the felt in between but you could also attach it with hot glue. On the other end you want to make a notch that your string from the bow will fit into. On the video, this is what my son calls a "scratch". You can either use sandpaper or my husband used a saw blade. 

Then for decoration you can use black Gorilla tape around the dowel. Make any design you want!

   

Now that you know how to make it, here is a fun story which goes along with this Bow and Arrow. We took it out twice yesterday to two different places because of end of school parties. Both times my son had a line of kids wanting to try and shoot it and saying things like "I've always wanted to shoot a bow and arrow!" and "Where did you buy this?" He loved showing all the kids how it works and it was fun seeing it withstand all the action of many different people, even adults, shooting it! 

Enjoy your Bow and Arrow and be prepared to have people ask if they can try it out!

I also wanted to give a BIG shout out to my AWESOME husband for making the really cool video in the beginning. I LOVE you! What would I do without you!?!

*TIP*You can find great black sunglasses for your hawkeye costume at the Dollar Store!

How to make the Finger Glove & Armguard

It was so much fun to look at Hawkeye pictures and create the different equipment he is wearing to fit my son! In this post I will show you how I made the Armguard, which in definition is a protective covering for the wrist and/or arm from being scraped by the bow string & the Finger Glove, which is used to protect your fingers from the string while also allowing the string to slide smoothly off your fingers. Obviously, for the PVC bow, you don't really NEED these but you look REALLY cool wearing them and it's part of the costume if you want to look like Hawkeye! 

How to make an Armguard

What you will need:

• 3/4 inch black elastic
• Black thread and needle

All I did was measure my sons arm in three different spots between his wrist and elbow. You want the elastic right by the elbow (pictured) to be tightest so the Armguard doesn't fall down when they are playing! Leave a little extra elastic so you can hand stitch it together.

 Pictured below are my three different lengths of elastic. They will get smaller as you measure down to the wrist. Then all you do is overlap a little and hand stitch together with a needle and thread! Simple as that!

   

 After you have all three circles of elastic sewn, put them on your child's arm and then measure out a strip of elastic that will connect all three together. This will also cover up your seems.

   

 Here is a picture after I hand stitched the three circles of elastic to the long strip! I can't give you any exact measurements because each child will be different.

   

How to make the Finger Glove

What you will need:

• Very small amount/scrap of black fabric (I used some that looked like leather)
• Black thread and needle
• Black Velcro
• 3 plastic party rings
• black ribbon
• good scissors 
• Hot Glue

I went to the fabric store and found this AWESOME black fabric that looked like leather and bought the smallest amount they would let me, which was 1/8 of a yard. I also used this same fabric to make the Quiver (the carrier for your arrows), Part 3 post which you will have to check back for in a few days. So you will use most of it!

First thing I did was measure the length of the fabric around my sons wrist. I left about an inch overlap for the Velcro. Then I folded the fabric in half. I wanted a nice thick band and a good edge but if you don't care, you can just simply cut the width of the rectangle without folding over and sewing. There is also no exact measurement to the width of the band. Just eye it with your child to see what you both like!

I then hand stitched the fabric together around the three edges!

   

 You measure your black velcro to fit the band at each end and then hand stitch it on!

 For the next step you need three plastic party rings. With good scissors, be careful and cut the jewel off the top leaving a plain plastic band.

   

 Now that you have three plain rings you need to cut three long pieces of black ribbon.

 You simply fold the ribbon over the top of the ring and hot glue it down. When you have all three done, put them on your child's three middle fingers and see how they meet in the center. I then took them off my child and hot glued them together at the bottom. You can kind of see where I glued the string together in the picture on the right. The string needs to be long enough to reach your child's wrist.

   

 I then hand stitched the ribbon to the backside of the fabric wrist band. VERY IMPORTANT: you will want to try the rings and the wrist band on your child before sewing just so you get the ribbon sewn in the right spot!!!

THERE YOU HAVE IT, an awesome finger glove!

 Let me tell you, my son wears these EVERYWHERE!!! They are fun even to make for "spy gear". I know a few of my son's friends that would LOVE  Finger Gloves to wear just for play! Maybe future birthday presents!

*Another fun Idea which I might post about would be a fun dress up glove for your girly girl! You can keep the jewel on the ring and add her favorite color ribbon and pretty fabric that she picked out and make a pretty wrist bracelet. Get creative for your dress up box!

Part 3: The Quiver

Here is the, long awaited, LAST post to the Homemade Hawkeye Costume. This is how I made the Quiver, an Archers case for holding arrows. We messed around with different materials that could be sturdy enough for play but lightweight so the child doesn't get tired of holding it! I figured the best material would be cardboard! This is also cheap and you most likely have it in your home already!

Materials You Will Need:

• A tube of cardboard from wrapping paper.
• Black strong tape, Gorilla or duct
• Hot Glue
• Black fabric or something you want to use for the strap.
• A small piece of black Velcro
• Stapler
• Needle and Black Thread (if using fabric)
• Black spray paint (or whatever color you want the quiver)

What I did first was removed wrapping paper from its cardboard roll . Then I cut the roll in half, giving me two equal halves (pictured). You want your Quiver a little larger then one of these so you need to combine them together to make your holder a little larger. If you are only making two arrows... You actually don't need to do this step because they will fit in one of the halves of cardboard. 

To expand the holder I cut a straight line down the length of both rolls. Eyed how much more cardboard I wanted to use to expand and then cut the excess cardboard from one of the rolls. The second picture on the right shows that I added about a three inch width section to expand the cardboard. I then used my tape to hold it in place. You could also just use a stapler for this part. Then I hot glued the rest of the edge, down the line.

   

*The next step is to spray paint the cardboard... Since my son is dressing up as Hawkeye, we used black.

*Now you will be making the strap. I chose to use the same fabric I bought for the finger glove, simply because I had it.... also I love the look of leather that it has. However, you could use anything you want for this, example black elastic or even black duct tape folded in half (get creative). 

I cut two pieces of the black fabric. One about 19 inches long and the other about 5 inches. I folded the fabric in half, it made it about 1 1/2in. wide, and simply hand stitched the three edges together with black thread.

   

I measured the lengths of the fabric specifically for my son... many different children from our neighborhood have put on the quiver and it works for them too. However, just incase, before you do any stapling check out if you are making the straps so the Quiver fits on your child. 

*Tip, you want the Quiver kind of tight on your child... you don't want it to be hanging and swaying when your child is running.

Then fold about an inch of fabric in to the top and bottom edges and staple the two different lengths of fabric to the cardboard.

   

This picture is just meant to show you both straps. I actual hot glued one edge and din't like how it turned out so I'm telling you a better way to make it! However, now you should have one LONG strap and one shorter strap stapled to your cardboard.

I then sewed a piece of velcro onto the ends of the straps. Depending on what you used for the straps...You can also hot glue the Velcro on.

*Now you will cover the end with the shorter strap because that is the bottom of the Quiver and we need our arrows to stay put! Like I said above, I did this before adding the straps and I now think I should have done this step last... It works really well if BOTH straps are STAPLED to the cardboard before the bottom is taped on!!! 

Cut out a bit of cardboard from your leftover piece. Make it kind of fit into the bottom, filling in the circle. Then use your strong tape and tape down the whole thing, basically covering the whole bottom. You can make it look clean by covering the bottom side view with one more piece of tape around the bottom just so you don't see all of the little pieces coming together.... (pictured above in the side view).

   

 Here is a picture of my son with the Quiver on from the front. It is great that the velcro connects at a lower point and it's very comfortable to wear!

 The length of the strap holds the Quiver in a good place and makes it easy of him to pull out his arrows just by reaching back! 

There you have it, a nice lightweight and comfortable Quiver for your little HAWKEYE or Archer!

I just wanted to add something fun about this Quiver. My son loves to dress up! He sometimes will just wear this Quiver to hold his swords because of the easy access to pull them out over his shoulder! So this is a fun item to add to the costume box even if you aren't going to make the Bow and Arrows!

      

Part 4: The Vest

  

OK everyone!!! I finally got to making the "vest" for the Hawkeye Costume!

I tried to make it as simple as possible and keep it low cost!

At first I was going to look for a hoodie or something that already had a zipper sewn into it but then I thought, the zipper doesn't really have to work! I figured my son was just going to wear a black tank top, so why not just put some finishing touches right onto the tank!

Here is what you will need:

• A black tank top (you can find these as undershirts or dye a white tank top undershirt with black dye)
• A piece of Maroon Fabric that has the width of the tank (I got 1/2 yard)
• More black fabric, same as used for finger glove and quiver strap (I got 1/8 yard)
• A zipper that stretches the length of your tank
• Steam-A-Seam2 
• needle and black thread

The first thing you are going to do is attach the maroon fabric to the front of the tank. If you have a sewing machine you can use that. I used Steam-ASeam2 to basically fuse the fabrics together by ironing.  I showed how to use this stuff in another blog post, click HERE to see what to do! This stuff is GREAT for so many things!!!

 Here is the pattern I ironed on to the tank! 

 I then added the second pattern onto the tank! I used the zipper to draw it out!

   

 Here is the tank top with the maroon fabric ironed onto it!

 I then took my needle and thread and hand stitched on the seam of the two pieces of maroon fabric. This was just for looks! You don't have to do this but I think it helps to bring out the design!

   

I then hand stitched the zipper to the middle of the tank! This zipper is fun because it really goes up and down! I wished I could have gotten one just slightly longer but they didn't have one with a silver zipper!

   

 Next you are going to make the shoulders of the "vest". I showed you the basic measurements below of my son's top but this probably will be different for everyone. It's also not crucial to be exact!

I made two sleeves with the black leather fabric used before in other parts of the costume!

The basic idea is, where your fabric comes to a point, that is the fold between the front and back of the tank. I sewed along the folded edge but you can just simply cut it if you don't care about the edge look.

   

 Here is the picture of how I put the sleeves on. I first put a little bit of hot glue between the fabrics to keep them in place and then I hand stitched around the edges.

 Here is a close up to show you the hand stitching.

 Then turn the tank over and do the same thing.

There you go, a simple way to make a Hawkeye top for your costume!

          For ideas on how to make a PVC Bow and Arrows & Finger Glove for a Girl, Check out my post HERE! Your girl can pretend to be Merida from the movie Brave!

*I also like to add that you can find great black sunglasses for your little hawkeye

at the dollar store!

If you are looking for Avengers birthday party ideas....

Check out this other idea by clicking HERE!

Also, if you are wanting to make a Hawkeye costume like the comic, where he is purple and blue, Shwin & Shwin tells you how they made one!

Check it out by clicking HERE!

Simply Lambchops followed most of my instructions to make this costume and it came out REALLY cute! She gave two ideas, one I should have thought of.... Instead of trying to find a black tank top, you could also just cut the sleeves off a black t-shirt! Also, she made her bow out of a long wrapping paper roll. Might not last as long as one made from PVC pipe but still such a fun idea! Check it out HERE!