Catniss Hunger Games costume

This year my daughter had a "Dress Like a Book Character Day" at school, and she decided she wanted to be Catniss.  Yes, isn't that always the fun night before project :) 

So we began our hunt for stuff we have to make it work.  After all, it always has to be free : )

The black jacket - her sister's.
The black jeans - hers
The black laceup boots - her sister's
The hair - a waterfall braid
The makeup - black eye shadow blended in spots to make her face look dirty : )
The Hunger Games pin - the logo printed from the internet and glued to a safety pin
The bow - bamboo and ribbon
The arrows - wooden dowels and cardboard
The pouch - a leather decorative case I had in my living room

The clothing was the easy part.  We just needed black.  So she used her own dark jeans, her sister's lace up black boots and a black puffy coat of her sister's.  She had a few items to choose from but she felt this combo looked the best.

For the Hunger Games pin, we used the logo printed from the internet and glued it to a safety pin.  She just pinned it to her jacket.

For the hair, she looked on pinterest and showed me the waterfall braid.  French braid across the back of head to a braid coming down shoulder.  Simple enough.

The bow and arrow was the hardest.  Or should I say it took the most creativity.  For the arrows, I had wooden dowels in the garage that we used.  We hot glued cardboard to the tips for points and cut carboard "feathers" out glued them to the other end for backs.

For the bow we used a piece of bamboo I had in the garage (it was pliable which we needed so it would "bow").  We tied a piece of ribbon to both ends so it would hold the bowed shape and done.

The case we struggled with a little more.  We started with the idea of a faux leather pouch made from fabric I had, but my daughter wanted it to have more structure.  Then we thought of using a Pringles can, or something like it (which would have been fabulous), but we couldn't find anything in our house like that.  Then I spotted this leather case I have sitting in my family room as a decoration.  It looked so good and made the costume look more professional : )

The best part was when she went to school and all the kids were commenting on how great her costume looked.  Of course lots of girls dressed up like Catniss, but everyone said hers was the best.  That's when you know you've succeeded at making a free costume from stuff you have lying around the house : )