Happy Halloween! Did you dress up (or dress the kids up) this year? After a lot of work, I finally realized my dream of becoming a mermaid! Despite the amount of effort it took to create, this is actually one of the more fun craft projects I’ve completed lately. Mermaids are mystical, mysterious and really fun to portray at a party. In the end, this costume and I mermaid for each other (I just HAD to use that line and I’m not sorry about it.)

Making the Mermaid Shell Top

The most important part of a mermaid costume: the shell top! This was easily the most enjoyable part of the project. I searched until I found a purple bra, but a nude one would do just as well. In the end I covered so much of it over that it hardly mattered what color I chose. The shells are real (get natural cooking shells), painted with acrylic paint and sprinkled with glitter. I’m sure E6000 adhesive provides a stronger bond, but I used hot glue and hand stitches to put the top together. I wore the top to two parties and didn’t have a problem. I circled the shells with lace trim, added plastic pearl strands and a starfish brooch I purchased at a fundraiser this summer. I haven’t found any inexpensive starfish pins since, but if I do I’ll update this post with a link.

Making the Mermaid Skirt

One of the things I’m most proud of about this costume is that I was able to upcycle some items I already had on hand to make it! I’m not personally comfortable creating a lot of waste with my costumes. The base of this skirt is actually a navy pencil skirt from my closet. I simply covered it with 5/8 yard of sequin material with hand sewn stitches. This was way easier for me than sewing a skirt from scratch. An added plus is that the skirt underneath provides a lining for the see-through sequin fabric. The fin part of the skirt is a child’s skirt sewed to the bottom of the sequin portion. You could gather and sew your own fin fabric, but the skirt came with built in elastic that made walking a little easier.

Making a mermaid hair clip

Mermaids can be any color scheme. At one party I attended this weekend I met a beautiful mermaid with a handmade costume of her own in aqua and teal (even her hair). I wanted my costume to be very recognizable, so I went with coloring inspired by the iconic Little Mermaid Ariel: purple shells, green scale skirt, red hair and a little nod to her dinglehopper fork. This hair clip is made of 4 oval pieces of felt. The fork is a miniature plastic hors d’oeurve fork from a party store.

This whole project was super fun to create and I’m thrilled to share it with you all! Feel free to contact me with any questions about how this was made in the comments.

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3 Comments on A Mermaid Moment

  1. I bet it was lovely on you. Thankfully you had good weather and this year wasnt one there was snow! You would have gotten a tad chilly. The bottom is clever- I saw one with a ‘fin’ this year and all she did was trip all over.

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