For the past two Halloweens, my five year old has asked for costumes that I could not find in a store or online.  When he asked to be Jake, from “Jake and the Never Land Pirates,” I spent countless hours searching before I finally decided that if I spent the same amount of time making it as I did looking to buy it, I could probably come up with something he would love. I haven’t sewn in years so I found a way to use hot glue and a few hand stitches (thankfully Jake wears blue jeans so I didn’t have to worry about sewing pants). I ended up with a cute costume and a very happy kid.

Disney now has a Jake costume, but it doesn’t look as cute to me because it’s a jumpsuit and the boots look shiny.  I had the t-shirt and jeans already, so my total cost was around $25.00. If you would like to make your own Jake costume, or any pirate costume, for a fraction of the cost and plenty of cuteness, here is how I did it:

MATERIALS:

• 1/2 Yard Blue Felt
• 1/4 Yard Gold Felt
• Tiny piece of Brown Felt or brown trim (for the criss-cross on the t-shirt)
• 1/8 Yard Red Fabric – For headband. You can do less but we went to quite a few parties and it unraveled a little and I made another.
• 1 White t-shirt
• Sword from any party supply store
• Blue Jeans
• Brown boot covers – I used brown suede similar to these covers from Party City.

TO MAKE THE VEST: To make the blue of the vest, I was so lucky to find THIS TUTORIAL AND PATTERN from dana-MADE-it. Her blog post was for a Frontier Vest but it worked great for Jake too. I followed the tutorial to print the pattern, trace it onto the felt and then cut out the vest. Make sure to pay attention to putting the pattern on a fold for the back. I hand-stitched the seams together which was the only sewing required. Everything else was hot glue!

Once the vest was made, I cut the gold felt lengthwise into 1 inch wide strips and hot glued it around the edges of the vest. I cut gold circles for the buttons and hot glued those on too.

TO MAKE THE PIRATE SHIRT: I cut two slits in the sleeves and cut out the ribbing from the neckline. I then cut a small “V” in the neckline and hot glued two pieces of brown felt in a crisscross pattern.

TO MAKE THE BOOTS: I bought these covers from Party City and added the gold felt with hot glue. Make sure to look for the pirate boot covers that are not the Jack Sparrow ones–those stuck out really far at the top! If you can make your own boot covers with brown felt, this costume will end up even less expensive but I opted for pre-made. Jake wears his “J” on the inside top of the boot. If I were to make this again, I would probably put it on the outside for it to show better. I printed a “J” using “WordArt” in Microsoft Word and traced it on to the gold felt (you can freehand it of course). I hot glued those along with two gold felt stripes at the base of the boot.

TO MAKE THE HEAD BAND: I simply cut a strip of red and tied it into a knot. That year we were invited to quite a few Halloween parties and it eventually unraveled a little (but still fit the look of a pirate). I ended up making a second one on the actual day. It made me so happy to see him in this costume because it was exactly what he wanted. I felt proud to be able to deliver it and it gave me the confidence that I might be able to handle another challenge. Especially because the next year he asked to be a Sea Turtle and my three year old wanted to be a green Lego! Here’s the costume in trick-or-treating action:

I would love to see how everyone’s costumes come out.