It’s that time of year again. Crazed fans & intense competition define the month of March. And no, I’m not talking about college basketball. For all those parents of elementary aged children, you probably know what I’m referring to. March is Read Across America month! Some years, the dress up/theme days are crammed into a single week, but this year we got lucky and have them spread throughout the entire month. My son’s looks most forward to the day he gets to dress up as his favorite storybook character. This year he is decked out in a Geronimo Stilton Costume.

The challenge for the parent is NOT the reading this month, it is assisting in creative costuming. I absolutely love promoting creativity and lending a hand anytime my son wants to participate in these activities. My crafting abilities however are quite hopeless. The outcome of my many attempts of costume creating are more laughter inducing than anything else. This year, I feel I’ve outdone myself and have stepped up my skills a notch.

Which Geronimo Stilton Look?

If you are not familiar with the literary character Geronimo Stilton, he is a mouse that is also an author and protagonist in a series of children’s books. My son is particularly fond of the Kingdom of Fantasy series where Geronimo travels to a fantasy land and partakes on many perilous adventures. To my luck, he choose to dress as Geronimo in his day to day garb and not a suit of armor or sneaky disguise. So a mouse in a suit, not too hard right?!

Here is what i needed to obtain:

• White collared shirt
• Green vest
• Red neck tie
• Green Blazer
• Green trousers
• Mouse nose
• Mouse ears

With a week to prepare I started hitting the thrift stores nearby. Thinking green would be a popular color due to St. Patrick’s Day, I was very surprised to find a lack of supplies. Not to be defeated easily, I turn my energies online and run some Amazon searches. Once again, to my surprise I find limited options, and the decent items I did find were out of my price range for a costuming endeavor.

At this point its time to scale back and think of bare minimum. Back to the thrift store I go. I locate a white collared shirt and red neck tie quickly, but what about the green! My partner suggests a green shirt that can be cut into a vest. YES!!!! And it happens this same store has a bright green shirt that will work perfectly. Cut out of the plan was the green blazer in pants. We live in Arizona anyway, so khaki shorts and a short sleeves would work just fine!

Making Geronimo Stilton

Fast forward to the night before; time to get crafting! I started with cutting the sleeves and collar off the green shirt and snipping a v-neck to complete the look.

For the mouse nose, this is where I got a little more creative. I used the following supplies:

• toilet paper roll
• black puff ball
• blue gun
• 3 paperclips
• elastic from a spare party hat

Our process was:

1. My son crushed the tip of the roll to form the end of the nose and we globbed a bunch of hot glue to keep it closed.
2. Using more hot glue we stuck the black puff ball to the end.
3. I used the 3 paperclips to make the glasses. This task took the most time/effort and required the use of 2 pliers simultaneously. My trusty hot glue gun ensured the metal sculpture stayed in place as well.
4. Poke holes into the side of the roll with a spare paperclip enough to poke the elastic through then add another knot to keep it from sliding back through.

We adjusted the length a few times until he was satisfied but in the end I thought the result was quite mouse like.

The final piece of the costume were mouse ears. My son drew/colored ears, cut them out with an extra flap at the bottom and I used a barrette to clip them into his hair. To ensure they stay propped up, I added a paperclip to the back with yet more hot glue.

This is my pull request for a Geronimo Stilton costume. If you also make costumes but lack technical ability, please share your experiments and techniques as well. I’m sure we could all learn a few new tricks!