Yo Ho Ho & A Bottle of Brass Monkey

My nephew Calvin is going to have a pirate-y third birthday. If you're reading, Calvin, stop now--here comes a birthday spoiler!

The inspiration came from a pirate hat my sister sent Oliver two Christmases ago.

I traced it with white chalk on black felt to maket the pattern.

Then, I sewed it together & stenciled a skull and crossbones on the front. I'm still a novice stenciler and quickly abandoned the skull eyes and mouth which would have required using a technique involving "bridges & islands" that I don't quite understand (yet). So the skull is mouth- and eye-less. Sorry Calvin. Later I sewed the band on--$1/yard cotton jersey.

I also stenciled a black sparkly skull on a red t-shirt. Again, being a novice stenciler, the skull has a little knot on his head and no eyes and mouth, but what can you do? By the way, I made the stencils by finding an image online ( http://www.freewebs.com/stencilry/ ) and printed it out on cardstock. Then, I cut the image with an exacto knife. Theoretically, I should have been able to use them again, but I ripped the smaller one's jaw off when removing the tape from the hat.

Here's Ollie modeling the hat:

Here's the finished product. It's fairly close the original. It turned out pretty cool and took, all told, about an hour & fifteen--as long as it would have taken me to shop for something :)

For some reason I can't upload the last image of the shirt & hat. I know you will die from waiting and anticipation if you don't see it soon. I'll work on it this afternoon, but right now two boys are desperate to play a Mr. Potato Head cd-rom.