At least mostly handmade.

These are my boys’ costumes for the book character parade at their school. Andrew (4) chose the mouse from If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and Nathan (7) chose Waldo of Where’s Waldo? fame.

You would think the Waldo costume were the easiest thing in the world to put together, but..ummm…NO.

The first thing I did was make the hat. That part was easy. I CO 60 with a 5.5mm circular and k2p2 for like 20 rounds, then switched colors and knit about 20 more rounds, then did a basic crown decrease. Giant pom-pom completes the look. It fits him perfectly and took only a few hours. I want to make more in a bajillion different colors.

Next, I looked for a Waldo shirt. I only found red & white striped shirts that were for the adult version of the Waldo costume. Nothing that would fit a 7 year old! So, I figured I’d just paint a white shirt. I looked at Target for a white shirt–nothing. I looked at Wal-Mart–nothing. Frustrated, I moved on to the glasses. I thought I’d just find some at a thrift store and pop out the lenses, but no. I couldn’t find any round ones! SOOOO, pipe cleaners to the rescue! And the boy could help, so WIN!

I just needed the darn shirt. I finally found white long sleeve t-shirts at Old Navy and they had his size–whew! Painting was a whole other ordeal. I mixed my acrylic paint with some textile medium I’ve had forever. I used blue painter’s tape to mark off the stripes. It came out better than I was expecting. Even though some of the lines are a little messy, I still like the look. I heat set it, today, but I’m afraid to wash it, so the boy is going to wear it as-is. The acrylic was really rough, but the iron smoothed it out considerably. He’ll wear blue jeans and I’m thinking of letting him take my old Polaroid camera with him. He wants to be a zombie for Halloween night and I’m going to try so hard to get him to be ZOMBIE WALDO. How cool would that be?

Andrew’s mouse costume was easy-peasy. I made a basic crochet beanie (SO QUICK!) and then I knitted the ears on. I made the ears in the round with short-row shaping. I don’t know why I decided I would knit them, but I’m glad I did. Since they’re double-thick, they stand up and are just so damn cute. He wore the hat to the school’s Fall Festival this weekend (and a blue cape!) and received many compliments. However, they all thought he was a cat or even some sort of bear? Oh well! His tail is a long tube with a JUMBO pipe cleaner shoved down the center. Seriously. Easiest costume ever. I added a little loop to the back of his overalls to “tie” his tail on. He’s in love and so am I.

This next costume is for you 90’s kids. Get ready…

Do you know who he’s going to be? Hmmmmmm??

If you guessed Darkwing Duck, you are correct! My husband introduced them and so my littlest has been raving about a Darkwing Duck costume all month. The first thing I knew he would need was a purple blazer. OF COURSE there were no purple blazers for boys to be found. I went to Goodwill and found a cream linen blazer, picked up a packet of purple dye, and BAM! Purple blazer. The boy swooned. Like, really. He was so giddy to put it on. I made the cape (cut out the general shape, use double-fold bias tape around the neck, then zig-zagged around the edges) and crocheted the mask (I made the first row around a pipe cleaner so it’s stiff!). He already had the fedora. I just need to figure out what pants he’s going to wear. Darkwing Duck doesn’t wear pants, but it’s going to be too cold to go pants-less. He has some yellow boots to wear as duck feet, so I was thinking white pants, but I can’t find any! Ah!

Anyway, I kind of went all out with the DIY, this year. To be completely honest, this is the first year I’ve put together costumes for them. It’s usually my sister that buys them whatever they want or we go to a thrift store and my kid picks out a super-hero costume. I’m pretty excited for Halloween, this year! We may put them on tomorrow so I can get photos.