halloween prep: the little mermaid costume

aina is a big fan of Ariel, the Little Mermaid. and since last year, even before we did the Pink Robot, she’d considered becoming Ariel for Halloween. so this year, we granted her wish and made the Little Mermaid costume for her.

after looking at pictures of the mermaid on the internet, we came up with this plan.

so we went shopping at Spotlight and bought blueish green fabric, a matte one and a shimmery one, sequins, and felt backing to hold the tail structure. then we started cutting the felt in a shape of the tail.

then we use the felt as a pattern to cut the rest of the fabric in shape, to speed up the process.

then i started to quilt the layers together, in the shape of fish scales.

once the quilting layers for both the front and the back are done, i sew them together leaving holes on the top and the bottom to form a skirt.
then, we used the shimmery fabric for the tip of the tail. we had to improvise away from the plan, because it turns out that the shimmery fabric frays too easily when we tried to follow the shape we’ve planned. so, we had to scrap the wavy end of the tail and put the sequins at the edges instead.

we also put a black ribbon on the edge of the tail as a bracelet to keep the tail up when the costume is worn.
once the skirt was done, we decided to color it a little using crayons to accentuate the scales. caryons actually rub away easily, but it’s an easy medium to use. this way, aina could do most of the work herself.

after that, we forgot to take pictures…
i sew the shimmery belt with sequins hanging on the bottom of it. the belt was attached to the skirt using a snap button. the buttons were sewn on the from and the back of the skirt to prevent the belt from riding up. it worked very well!
as for the shell bra, we used aina’s old tanktop with nude color (fortunately, she had one, so we didn’t have to buy or make it). we made a pattern of the sea shell that she liked…

then, we bought a purple and glittery foam sheet and drew the shell pattern on top of it. then we cut it to shape and sew the sheet to her tanktop.
and after we put on the red wig, she’s now the little mermaid herself 🙂

and she’s very happy with the result. the red wig was a bit itchy to wear, but she’s adamant to wear it through out the treat-or-trick walk.