Sep 7, 2008

Mermaid Tail

My older daughter is going to be turning four years old in a month and she has her heart set on a "pirate-mermaid-superhero party". It took a while to get our heads around what she meant, but I think we have is sussed now. I drew her a pirate-mermaid-superhero to go on her party invite and we printed out a few copies of the black and white line art for her and her little sister to colour in at home. Here's what a pirate-mermaid-superhero looks like...
So, first thing is first. We need some mermaid tails! I went to goodwill and picked up a gigantic pair of old sweat pants that looked to be a suitable green colour and a similarly gigantic gypsie skirt in lighter green with silver trimming all around it at three levels. I didn't think to take a pic of the garments before I made the first tail, so here they are with one leg and the bottom section of the skirt missing. You get the idea.

I sewed one level of the gypsie skirt to the end of the bottom half of a leg of the sweat pants and then threaded in some elastic for the waistband. I had some very very old and slightly congeled silver fabric paint that I painted the scales on with, but it seemed to work ok.

The kids really like it. The littlest one insisted on wearing it for most of Friday. I have enough material from the two garments to make four mermaid tails I think.

4 comments:

Gary S said...

Brilliant idea!! Well done. And your 'model' looks very proud to be wearing your garment. ;)

Jenn Kirk said...

Good luck on your October b-day! What a fun theme. That mermaid tail is awesome. Your daughter must be in heaven!

LiEr said...

Why am I always reading blogs when I am in the middle of preparing a meal, I don't know. But I love these tails! Thank you for telling me about this post. I shall bookmark it and use your idea. It is the nicest I've seen so far.

Karin said...

Wow, I love this tail. Love it even more because all the materials came from castaway stuff. Fantastic!!

And the invite graphic is amazing too!!!

(Now to go back and drool over your kids' playdough worlds somemore...)