Smart Girls DIY: DIY Jake and the Neverland Pirates Costume

Smart Girls DIY has moved to SmartGirlsDIY.com and this post can now be found here

If your kids are like mine, they change their minds a million times about what they want to be for Halloween. My two younger ones swore they wanted to be Jessie and Woody this year, so I bought clearance costumes months ago. They won't even try them on now. My son was the worst offender this year, giving a different answer every time someone asked him what he was going to be. He did say Jakey several times, but also other things, so I didn't take it too seriously. He was Jake last year. Except we didn't get to go to the school party or parade because Halloween was postponed in New Jersey last year due to Super-storm Sandy and we were in Disney during NJ's fake Halloween.

Anyway... his Jake costume was tight on him last year, and he's a skinny little guy. The one piece outfit was so form-fitting he looked like he was in a ballet performance of Jake and the Neverland Pirates. There was no way I was going to let him try to squeeze into it this year. Here we are in Disney last year.

What I'm trying to say is that I waited until the last minute on purpose. Whatever he decided the night before was what he was going to wear. Not such a good plan. Not at all. We went to Walmart. They had like 3 costumes total. He was still saying he wanted to be Jake. It was late. I was tired. So I kicked into survival mode, and grabbed a pair of bright blue Faded Glory jeans for $9.92. Not a bargain, but that's what I get for procrastinating and he can totally wear them as regular jeans after Halloween. And a pack of white t-shirts for $5.92, because I figured the little man could wear the other 4 and I could cut up one. My one mistake was buying an over-sized blue t-shirt at $3.47. If I could go back I would have gone down a size instead of going up. I think I was just really worried he'd outgrow it before tomorrow. No one else seemed to be bothered by it. But you'll notice now that I said it. The only other things I need to pick up was yellow bias tape ($1.96) and 4 yellow buttons (4/$.59).

I already had some Heat-n-Bond to attach the bias tape. This is what you use if you don't want to sew. And who wants to sew! We also had a Jake wig (we got ours at Disney Land last year, but here's one on eBay) and brown Uggs (that I totally got in great condition for free and he has beaten them to death). The belt is actually a pair of his sister's leggings that were in the Goodwill pile. I forgot about the belt until it was time to head off for the school parade and party, so I quick grabbed the leggings and cut off a few inches below the waistband. I tied the legs in a knot and was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked the look. The leggings had a little lace around the ankles and it looked very piratey to me.