Halloween 2013: Jake and the Neverland Pirates DIY costume

Ryan's favorite show lately, is Jake and the Neverland Pirates on Disney Jr. so it's no surprise he wanted to be Jake for Halloween. Instead of buy the expensive official costume this year, I decided to see if he could be satisfied with a DIY version. I'm not sure we ended up saving a ton of money once we bought the pirate sword props ($3 and only allowed at home and when trick-or-treating outside), the rainboots and felt ($12) but at least the rainboots could technically be worn again.  Ryan seemed happy with it and got to wear it at a Halloween party at daycare, trick-or-treating, and for the Hallelujah party, so I'm glad he had something pretty "wearable". 

Daycare party

 

 These boots were created with plain black rainboots from Walmart, a sheet of sticky-backed brown felt, a sheet of yellow craft foam, glue, and tape.

 I cut the felt sheet in half and then cut off only half of the backing paper. Then, I wrapped the top sticky part around the boot with the seam on the inside. This gifts the look of a "cuff". I then cut out 2 yellow "J's" and a buckle for the front of the boot. I recommend hot-gluing the J onto the felt. I used Elmer's school glue and it didn't stick that well.  I just used double-stick tape for the buckles because I wanted to be able to easily peel them off when complete.  Note: the felt got a little raggedy after a full day of wearing and it did leave some sticky residue, but nothing a little "goo-gone" can't get off.

To complete the outfit, we cut a strip of red fabric from one of my old tee-shirts for his bandana and used blue pants, a striped shirt, and khaki vest from his closet. Jake actually wears a white shirt and blue vest, but I didn't want to buy any extra clothes, so we just made do with what we had. The sword came in a $3 pirate set from Walmart that also included an eyepatch (and earring that Ryan was more interested in wearing in his nose to act like a bull than on his ear.)

Overally, he had a really fun time dressing up like Jake and the costume was fairly low-stress, so I'm calling it a win!