How to Make a Highway Rat World Book Day Costume

The Highway Rat has been a firm favourite in our household for both our boys so when it came to their World Book Days, both chose to be this character in reception class. This is quite a simple DIY as long as you already own a few of the accessories but even if you don’t you should be able to source most secondhand to save on the pennies. Here is how I made The Highway Rat World Book Day costume… Twice!

What You Will Need:

• White shirt

• Trousers – he wears purple in the book but we opted for black trousers

• Black boots or shoes

• Pink tights/long socks and stuffing

• Clothes hanger

• Black cape

• A black hat (pirate/cowboy style)

• A black mask (for the eyes)

• Sword

• A sword holder/belt or ribbon

• Face paints

• Scissors

• A sewing kit

Making The Highway Rat Costume

The Shirt

The main make of this costume for us was the shirt. I didn’t want to buy brand new as I really didn’t want to spend too much and I knew it wouldn’t get worn much again. The Highway Rat’s shirt is white with a ruffled front so to make this the first time I opted to use an adult shirt that we already had, the second time that shirt was looking worn from play (there’s 4 years between my two children) so I picked up a large kid’s school shirt in a charity shop.

Pop the shirt on your child and check how much of the length from the bottom can be cut away. This will be used to create your ruffles so you will need enough material for this but also leave enough so the shirt can be tucked in. The extra length on the sleeves can either be rolled up or again cut to the right size. I used scissors to cut a nice curved effect all the way around.

To make the ruffle for the front, tidy up your cut-off and fold it into a concertina. Now take a needle and white thread and stitch the ruffle to keep it in this shape. You can adjust as you go and alter the length or width by cutting a little bit off. The ruffle wants to look good but also be comfortable and not a distraction for your child. Once it is ready, stitch it to the button side of your shirt, so that you can still easily button it up but also so that it covers the front equally.

Trousers

As I mentioned above, we opted for black trousers simply because I couldn’t find purple ones in the charity shops and I didn’t want to buy new (for both a sustainability point of view and a budget one). I did raid our dressing up box as I knew we had pirate and policeman outfits but all were a little bit too short for him (always worth a look though). Luckily, I found some very cheap black school trousers in a charity shop which I knew would get a lot of wear for more dress up occasions (mostly Halloween).

Shoes

The Highway Rat wears black boots in the book but school shoes look absolutely fine.

The Tail

The tail is the other big make of this costume idea. The first time I made it I simply scrunched up pink tissue paper and taped it together in the shape of a tail. It looked ok but it didn’t last the day so the second time I chose to buy some pink tights, cut one leg off and filled it with stuffing from an old duvet (you could also use old soft toys for this).

Once it was sufficiently filled I took an old wire clothes hanger, cut it to size using pliers and bent it into shape. I then covered the ends with masking tape to ensure they were safe and pushed it inside the tights leg. I continued to pack it out with stuffing to get the ideal shape and to secure the clothes hanger would stay in place. This was safety pinned onto the back of the trousers.

Of course, an even simpler option would be to use some string or rope as the tail.

Black Cape

The first time I made this costume I cut up an old black Halloween costume to create a cape shape. I then stitched some material to make a tie for the front and it did work ok but looking back it wasn’t overly neat. The second time we did it, we had more costumes in our collection including a long cape so all I had to do was cut the length to size and it was good to go. You could also use a bin bag, dye a sheet black and cut to size, check the charity shops or Vinted.

The Accessories

Any black hat that looks like a pirate one will do and again most people have these in a dressing up collection or you can source it secondhand. We added a purple feather to the back which we found in our arts and crafts box.

The Highway rat wears an eye mask which you’ll often find part of pirate, burglar, and superhero sets but they are also easy to buy new or secondhand. The same can be said for the sword. If you don’t have a sword holder you could use a belt or tie ribbon type material around their waist as we did, to slip the sword behind.

Face Painting

You will need red/pink and black face paints for the finishing touch. A little red/pink nose with black whiskers on their cheeks and they are complete.

The Finished Look

The overall look was great and he even won the costume competition for his class so he was over the moon with it.

Good luck with your costume making and if you are looking for more ideas why not check out these other blog posts?

• How to Make a Harry and The Bucketful of Dinosaurs World Book Day Costume
• How to Make a Mr Tickle World Book Day Costume
• How To Make A Diary of a Wimpy Kid World Book Day Costume

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