Lion and Lion Tamer Wheelchair Costumes

Every year i try to come up with an idea for a costume or character i can be that can involve transforming my wheelchair into something, anything.  In past years, i've done PeeWee Herman and Chairy, Roger Rabbit and Benny, Fred Flintstone and car, Captain Hook and ship, race car driver and racecar, etc.  Last year, for whatever reason i had it in my head that i wanted to get cat eye contact lenses and pretty much based my costume idea on that.  A lion! A caged lion. A caged circus lion. To my surprise i was able to gather a crew of circus freaks to join in. 

The lion and lion tamer costumes were hand sewn by my very talented mom, who put more work into this idea than anyone. Thank you, mama. 

How to make a circus lion cage!

I always come up with these crazy ideas for costumes that i can't actually physically do myself.  Luckily, my handy dandy dad came to the rescue to help out with the lion cage/wagon.  Cut out plain cardboard for the cage frame and spray paint it red. Two parts: top and bottom. Cut out cardboard accents spray paint gold.  The wheels were easy.  Take your wheel, trace the inside of it on cardboard, cut out and it should fit perfectly snug into the wheel.  Spray gold.  Usually anything spray painted on cardboard will need at least 2 coats.  The cage bars were made from pvc piping, which you can get at any hardware store.  We cut them to size, sprayed them gold.  My dad spaced the bars apart with little wooden dowels. Glued to each pipe, they created an even distance between each pvc pipe.  Dowels on both the top and the bottom of the pipes.  This way, the dowels don't show once the red frame was placed on.  The red bottom base is placed over my head to rest on my chair.  the gold bars are placed over my head to rest on the bottom base.  The top red frame is placed over the bars to rest gently on top.  Thank you papa bear, for construction and spray painting.

Not the greatest instructions without photos, but you get the idea if you ever want to give it a try!  I didn't reread those instructions above, so i'm just going to assume they made complete and perfect sense. 

Paint face. Put on costume. Put in contacts. Get in cage. Caged circus lion with lion tamer!