Happy Halloween Charlie Brown

King Diaper's Charlie Brown Shirt!

Halloween is tomorrow, and we are ready at our house.  Until this year, we have celebrated Halloween going to grown up parties.  I've been Little Red Riding Hood, a Catholic School girl and all the other fun costumes that grown up women like to do.  And, I've finally traded some of that for something more elementary and quite different.

King Diaper is going to trick or treat for his first time this year, and I'm excited not to have to do a costume for myself actually.  I started out looking at all of the store bought costumes and didn't find much of it to be for us.  So, I went to my "go-to" ideas places - Etsy and Pinterest.  And there it was!  Charlie Brown!  Both easy and fun.

Since we already have a stuffed Snoopy, all we needed was the yellow shirt with black zig zag.  I could have bought one, but I knew I could make it cheaper and pretty quick.

I started with a plain, long sleeve, white tee shirt.  Why not yellow?  Not any easy find!  But, I could just dye it.  No big deal.  I picked up a bottle of yellow liquid fabric dye and did it in about 30 minutes. Its not the kind of thing one has to watch over.  Once the time was up, I just stuffed it into the washer and did a quick wash.

Craft supplies - shirt, paint, brushes and
fabric dye

Next I drew off a zig zag with a pencil onto the bottom of the shirt and painted it with black paint and a foam brush.  The paint was just a simple craft paint.  The foam brush was helpful in straightening the edge of the lines.  When doing something like this, but a piece of paper or cardboard between the layers to keep it from bleeding through.  You could also draw the black zig zag outline with a permanent marker and paint inside the line.  Either way, its so easy.

The cost break down for this project was:

Shirt - $3.98
Paint - $.97
Brushes - $1.47 (for a pack of four and used 1, $.37 and can use the left overs later!)
Yellow, liquid fabric dye - $2.47

The grand total was $8.89 for the whole lot of items.  Or, $7.79 if you are looking at the exact total of the items used.  Either way, it was less than $10 for everything!

Shirt after dying and ready for paint!

Halloween night, he will wear the shirt and jeans with his Chuck Taylors.  Our "Charlie Brown" will have Snoopy and a plastic pumpkin.  And for purest, this is our version of Charlie Brown.  Part of the fun of Halloween isn't recreating the exact replica as much as creating our own costume through one's own eyes.

So look for some inspiration on Pinterest or Etsy.  A simple search for children's costumes or something more specific (gender or theme) will yield some great results.  And if you don't have time to make your own, Etsy probably has a vendor that can do the work for you.  Yes.  I know Halloween is tomorrow.  But, it is never to early to start thinking about next year.

So, Happy Halloween!  Enjoy whatever festivities you plan to join in on whether it be handing out candies, taking little ones trick or treating and dressing up yourself.  You are never to old to enjoy this holiday.  I'm excited to see it through a child's eyes this year!