Where’s Waldo?

Last year for Halloween, Brian was out of town doing training for work, so we didn’t bother to think about dressing up. In fact, all I did was read a book with a bowl full of candy for trick-or-treaters who never came to our apartment. Lame! With Halloween on a Saturday this year I made plans for us to attend a party at our friend’s house on Halloween, and attend the ‘Trunk-or-Treat’ at our church the week before.

With two parties, we needed some cool costumes. I wanted a couples costume that wasn’t too expensive, and would be comfortable to wear. After scouring the internet for weeks, I finally decided what we would be. Brian was even excited about it! We decided to be Waldo and Wenda from the “Where’s Waldo?” books.

I figured it would be pretty easy to find some striped red long-sleeved shirts. Nope. Apparently Red stripes are so last year. So I decided to buy just white shirts and use red duct tape for the stripes. I’d seen pictures of other people doing that. The only problem with using duct tape was that duct tape is not stretchy. I put a couple rows of tape on my shirt and then couldn’t put it on. Ah! It was obvious it just wasn’t going to work.

I taped off the shirts anyway and decided to spray paint the shirts instead, and then take off the tape. With it being the day before the trunk or treat, I was definitely cutting it a bit close, but I really thought the duct tape would have worked! I bought a couple cans of red spray paint and the next day Brian and I spent the afternoon tagging our shirts. I was a bit worried that the spray paint would seep through the fabric and ruin the white stripes, but it mainly stayed where we wanted it to, yay!

After we’d let the paint dry, we started ripping off the tape and were pleasantly surprised by how well the shirts had turned out. So exciting!

Now that I knew it was working I had to hurry and bust out some hats for us. I had a beanie that I could update and use for my hat, but for Brian’s, I had to do my best from scratch. I found a pretty good tutorial on how to make it. I just used paper sized sheets of felt that I found at Michaels. For not really knowing how to sew, I thought it turned out really great. With some glasses and a pair of stockings that I bought at the local Halloween store, we looked pretty snazzy. Waldo sometimes carries things too, so Brian carried some binoculars around at the party, and I carried the Binocular bag.

We had a great time at the Trunk or Treat that night in our awesome costumes. It was flattering when people would ask where we bought our shirts. We were just a little bit sad when people thought we were Dr. Suess characters (thing 1 and thing 2). Most people recognized us and would say they found us. It was cutest when one of the kids came over to us, pointed and said, “Waldo.” Yep, you found us. We tried making our own “Where’s Waldo?” scenes in the crowd. We took turns walking around the auditorium while the other snapped pictures. I wish we had more of an aerial shot, or shots from outside when the kids were trunk or treating, but oh well. Maybe we’ll get some better shots on Halloween.

The kids there were all so cute. They had a little parade around the auditorium to show off their costumes. I think Nemo was our favorite costume. Too cute.