Where is Waldo? DIY costume on the cheap!!

This week the kids were instructed to dress up as a character from a book. Last year my son went as Charlie Brown, this year my husband came up with the great idea to create a Waldo costume. Of course we ran it by my son first, and he loved the idea. Waldo is such an iconic character with such a distinct look I knew we could pull it off, just had to figure out how to get the red and white striped shirt. Our first thought was to just cruise the stores, but we came back empty handed. So the next idea was to create the shirt. This is how I did it. 

SHIRT

Supplies needed:

1″ frog tape (multipurpose)

White cotton T-Shirt

Tulip Red Color Shot (2 cans to get a deep red color)

The first thing that I did was tear off a small piece of tape to use as a guideline for the space between the stripes. I placed the small piece of tape that I tore off at the bottom of the shirt. This gave me a reference point to start my tape. I unrolled enough tape to reach across the front of the shirt and laid it down along the top edge of the guide. Instead of cutting the tape off here I flipped the shirt over and continued my tape across the back. This way the lines would well…..line up. I repeated these steps all the way up the shirt. When I got to the collar I decided to tape it off because it was easier than trying to only paint the part showing inside the stripe.Once the shirt has been completely taped off you can start spraying your shirt with the red paint. The instructions on the can are pretty easy to follow, however I chose not to wash the shirt because I was afraid the color would bleed, and since this is just for Halloween I figured it would be alright.

HAT AND CANE

The hat and cane were made by my mother-in-law (I only know how to crochet a blanket, sorry). She did mention that it was very easy to find a basic pattern for the hat. As for the cane, she crocheted around a .98 cent plastic candy cane (the ones for the yard) from Wal-Mart.

GLASSES

The glasses we used were some cheap sunglasses from the dollar store with the lenses removed.

This is the finished costume. Just add a pair of blue jeans, brown shoes and you are all set!

I hope you liked this Halloween costume idea, please leave a comment and check out our Etsy store!