The Pirates of the Caribbean Costumes (What I bought-- What I sewed)

 Sometimes you get an idea in your head and you just start running with it!

Hence, our Halloween outfits this year:

I suppose this idea started a couple months ago.  We had a few family date nights where we sat around, ate pizza and watched The Pirates of the Caribbean together.  Any scary parts, we'd skip over.  It turned out to be so much fun -- after a couple of weeks we had watched all four movies together.

This fun ended right when it was time to start scheming our Halloween outfits -- well, this turned out to be an obvious choice.

 We got out first opportunity to dress up this past Saturday for a church party. (Luckily no one in our family is too Frozen crazy.)  Amidst all the Elsas and Annas at the party we were a motley crew.

The kids really loved staying in character and you could tell they all felt pretty cool as Pirates!

Here's the breakdown of our outfits and our inspirations:

My oldest wanted to be Will Turner -- but not the early movie version, the cool one from the 3rd movie.

I bought him a purple shirt and black pants (from Goodwill).  The purple shirt was a Mens size XL.  So I cut it up and resewed it to fit him.  The black shirt is actually my shirt, straight from the closet.  I sewed on the shiny buttons and added the black head scarf made of black knit material and some orange fabric I had on hand for around his waist.

My second wanted to be Jack Sparrow.

I bought his blue pants from Goodwill.  I bought some dark red knit material for his head and sewed on some beads to the side of it.  I sewed up the blue vest, using the Schoolboy Vest pattern.  I stretched the pattern and added lot of length to make it extra long. I sewed on some shiny buttons.  Then I serge some red and white fabric to make his sash.  Pair that with some belts, a sword, and boots and we're set.

This little cutey really wanted to be Angelica, the girl pirate from the 4th movie.  It was so funny hearing her tell her friends she wanted to be Angelica-- and them all having no clue what she was talking about!

I bought a $1(magician) hat from Target, but recovered the whole thing with felt to make it suit my needs (tutorial forthcoming).  I sewed up a schoolboy vest for her but really altered the fit of the vest, giving her a real unique design from fabric I already had on hand.  She is wearing a felt Spanish inspired cummerbund, but you can't really see it.  The shirt and pants we already had on hand.  Then last minute we tied a gold sash around her waist.  Last, we gave her my church belt and called it good!

Initially my husband informed me he really wanted to be Davy Jones, complete with squid face, crab hand, and peg leg.  I laughed, "There is NO WAY I can make a Davy Jones costume for you!"  I'm creative, but that would be insane.  Eventually he conceded that Captain Barbarossa would work well and baby could be Jack-the-monkey.

Jack-the-monkey was really fun to make.  You may remember the monkey suit from this costume.  All I had to do was sew up a red vest (in crushed red velvet), using the schoolboy vest pattern.  Pair that with a white church shirt, on top of a monkey costume and we were good!

Captain Barbossa was the very last costume I completed.  I was having some concept issues.  I couldn't figure out how to complete this look.  I bought him some black pants from Goodwill.  I also bought a small (cowboy) hat there, too.  Eventually I figured out how to make that hat into a large pirate hat (tutorial forthcoming).  I sewed him a faux leather double breasted vest.  After making three vests, I had the whole vest sewing thing figured out pretty well.  I just traced out one of his work shirts to get a good fit.  Then I made it extra wide in the front so it would be double breasted.  Lastly I sewed on all those shiny buttons.  He paired that with an unrolled church shirt and black suit coat and some belts and we were golden!

Lastly, everyone voted on me being Elizabeth Swann.  Of course I chose to be the pirate Elizabeth Swann, I wasn't going anywhere close to those dresses she wore in the first movie.

I bought the brown pants and white shirt from Goodwill.  I borrowed the awesome brown hat from a friend.  I sewed up the vest, using one of my shirts as a guide.  Then I sewed on all those shiny buttons.  To be honest all those buttons were my biggest expense.  But I don't think I'd get the authentic look I was going for with plastic buttons with holes in them.  I let my hair air dry that day, added a bit of makeup and a few belts and got my pirate Arrrghs going.

The party was really fun!  We even won "Scariest Costume" as a family.  I can see why!