Cardboard Viking Helmet

Vikings were Scandinavian traders and sometimes pirates who raided and settled in Europe from c.900-c.1200.

If you are looking for a good halloween costume idea or doing a school project on vikings, this viking helmet is interesting and awesome! It's pretty strong and durable; I dropped my helmet a few times and, surprisingly, the horns didn't break or crumble.

-a glue gun (I used a mini one but a regular one works fine)

-glue sticks for your glue gun (lots of them!!!)

-cardboard (it doesn't matter if it has paint or anything like that on it, you will cover it up after)

-paint in whatever colors you have, I used White, silver and gold

-popsicle sticks (optional)

-paper mache *

-sandpaper or a sanding block (optional)

*If you don't have a roll of paper mache, mix all-purpose flour with water, then dip thin paper like newspaper in it.

Depending on the how big you want the helmet to be, you may need to use different sizes and shapes than I did. For my pentagon, the sides are about 8 cm each and the tabs are about 3 cm x 8 cm. The 5 small triangles I used have 3-cm-long sides, as well.
(The straight lines are where I cut, and the zigzag lines are where to fold. )

Once you get all of your shapes planned out, it's time to cut them out! I used regular scissors, but craft knives work as well.

After all of the pieces are cut out, fold down the tabs on the sides of the pentagon so it will fit your head. You usually don't need to fold them that far down. Then take your triangles and adjust them to fit the spaces on the sides of the tabs, then glue them together. You'll get a 3D pentagon. The smiley face is the left half of the helmet I will leave open for the face.

To extend the helmet downward, cut some pieces of cardboard to match the length of the tabs, but when glued, make it face slightly inward. Then add some more cardboard on top of that so that the helmet is slightly curving outwards, but not too much. You will have some gaps in the corners, so cut triangles to fit the gaps and glue it.

I tried my helmet on right after I cut and glued the main frame, but the front part didn't cover my forehead like I had originally planned. So I cut more pieces of cardboard and glued them to the front until it fit well. Another idea is to use popsicle sticks instead of the cardboard.

For the Horns, bend two popsicle sticks, then glue them so that it creates an angle- however you want your horns to be shaped. Then make a hole on each side of the helmet where you want your horns to be, and glue the popsicle stick in the hole.

Once the glue dries, cover the horns in paper mache. I used a roll of pre-made paper mache, so I just needed to dip it in water to get it to stick.

Once the paper mache dries, cover the whole helmet with a base coat of white paint. After I did mine, I scratched a bit of the paint off the horns to give it an old, rustic feel, since the paper mache was a slight off-white color. Then, paint the helmet part with whatever color you want to use, I used a mixture of metallic gold and metallic silver paint.

Since there are probably the popsicle sticks sticking out from the horns, you can cover them by gluing a sponge to that part. It is also good to keep the helmet more snug on your head and makes it less likely to fall off.

You have probably noticed that there is something missing: the inside paint! Cover the cardboard with white paint and the sponges with the paint you used for the outside. Then once the paint dries, cover the white cardboard with your paint you used for the outside. It should look pretty good!

I left my helmet plain, but if you want to make it look even better, you can add pretend bolts, and details with swirls and other decorations with paint or cardboard.