DIY Mermaid Costumes

Every year, I create Halloween costumes for my kids. I have taken store bought costumes and embellished them or piece mill several different costumes together to create something completely different. They love dressing similar to each other each year but with their own individual personalities or twists added to the costumes. They usually tell me their theme choice and I go from there (vampires, dead brides, angels, princesses). This year, I did things a little differently. They did not get to pick out their theme. I kept my kid’s Halloween costumes a surprise from them until about a week before Halloween when I needed them to try them on.

I had a lot of fun creating these costumes. I started out with an idea and then went to town. The end result was, in my opinion, incredible. These costumes were definitely the most asked about costumes. Parents were stopping us all night and asking me where I bought them from. Talk about an ego boost!

I found an adult mermaid costume tail on Ebay and a mermaid dress on Amazon. These became my inspiration for the costumes. I bought dried flowers, beads, cheap plastic birthday crowns, a ton of shells, and netting. A friend helped me out with a ton of “old” costume jewelry. I used old swimsuits to create their tops. Since we live in a northern area of the US, I knew it would be too chilly for them to go anywhere without some kind of an additional layer added. So, I needed the layer to blend in so to speak. I chose black long sleeve bodysuits. It worked out perfectly with the choice of the darker tail and dress. The crowns were very heavy. I had to reinforce the lower parts of the crown with headbands so that they would stay in place on their heads.

Both costumes originally were supposed to have wigs for them to wear. However, when they tried on the crowns, the wigs would not allow the crowns to stay on their heads. They kept sliding off. So, they opted for the crowns instead.