How to make a sailor costume

Sometimes the most memorable homeschool history lessons involve costumes, and play.  But, I don’t know about you, I am not organized enough to keep that many costumes, and I don’t have the funds to get that many costumes.  That’s why I’m always happy to figure out easy costumes, like this easy sailor costume.  It doesn’t require any sewing, but it will require raiding your husband’s closet.

Finding the clothes for the sailor costume

First, head to your husband’s closet (or yours, it just needs to be a bit bigger than your kids, but my boys can realistically fit my clothes and it doesn’t like weird, this scares me).

You’ll need:

• a long sleeve polo shirt (ideally, but a short sleeve polo can work)- shirts at this time were limited on buttons.  Buttons are expensive, so shirts were often lace-up.  This lets you have a somewhat similar shirt.  Best color is white or off-white.  If it’s stained and dirty that is perfect.
• baggy pants- sailors wanted clothes that would let them move easily, as they had to “climb the rigging,” or other nautical terms
• belt or if you have a strip of cloth, that would also be good, I grabbed a scarf I’d squirreled away from some outfit
• A vest- not necessary, but adds a bit of flair and costume to it
• a hat, for a sailor costume a simple knit or crocheted hat works well

Putting together your super simple sailor costume

It’s super simple.  I just had Batman put on his own baggy shorts, and then slip Jeff’s polo shirt over his head.  The sleeves were WAY too long, so we rolled them up, adding a nice touch to the costume I think.  Then I tied the scarf around Batman’s waist while stuffing the cap on his head.

Extra details you can pick up during Halloween season fairly easily (these are Amazon affiliate links):

• telescope (while there are some plastic ones, this one is just cool)
• blunderbuss (bonus, this is also a Nerf gun)
• treasure map (in case you wanted to go pirate)
• compass
• pieces of eight
• Captain’s logbook (tomorrow’s post)
• Quadrant (Wednesday’s post)
• maps (in case you want to be an honest sailor, but these aren’t for almost two weeks)

This is why you never get great staged photos on my blog, our sailor costume photo shoot was interrupted by brigands wearing a bonnet

I really can’t make these stories up.

Also, I had my camera on the wrong setting for most of these, so I opted to make them “artistic.”  And that bottom left picture is Princess celebrating not having a cast, and now having bright pink cowboy boots.

Tomorrow check in and see our Captian’s logbook.