hippie day on a shoestring budget

Last week my oldest son had "hippie day" in his class because they were studying the 1960's in Social Studies. The kids could dress up in a costume if they wanted, but they didn't have to. Apparently the teacher has a great costume and she challenged the kids to beat her at Best Costume. My son was so excited about dressing up, but we didn't have ANYTHING hippie-like in the house and I wasn't too excited about spending money on a costume for him to wear once.

Thank goodness for the Internet and Google, because I came up with some great ideas!

Here's what we did.

We went to a craft store and bought a plain red t-shirt ($3) and 2 bandannas ($3). We went to the Dollar Tree and bought some pink tinted, round sunglasses ($1). Once we got home, we got busy putting it all together.

First, we tie dyed the t-shirt using 4 parts bleach to 1 part water. We twisted, knotted, and rubber banded the t-shirt and let it sit in the bleach mixture for 10 minutes. After that, we rinsed the shirt really good under water, unknotted it, and let it hang to dry. The next day I washed and dried it. The result? A two-toned red tie dyed t-shirt.

Then we made bell bottom blue jeans using one of the bandannas and an old pair of jeans. To do this I ripped the outside seam of the jeans legs from the ankle to just below the knee. I cut 2 triangles out of the bandanna fabric and sewed it into the ripped seam, making them into bell bottoms. Next I used a black marker and made 2 peace signs on the jeans.

He used the other bandanna around his head, wore the sun glasses and carried a sign (to show his protest for something). In the picture he was holding his guitar, but he didn't take it to class.

So what do you think of our groovy $7 Hippie Costume?