Under the Sea Handmade Series - Mermaid Tail

 

 

"Mum, I want the longest mermaid tail that you have ever seen"
this was the request by soon to be Miss 5

 



Right, as much as I would love to deal with the tears as her tail is repeatedly stepped on by the 20 or so 4 & 5 year old excited party guests, I decided to ignore (that seems harsh, but I really think it was a case of mum knows best) her request and suggest instead we could go with the sparkliest tail she has ever seen?? (thankfully, that did the trick).

So on that note, it was on to Pinterest to search for a mermaid tail tutorial.  Out of the many out there, I found this one and loved it http://blog.makezine.com/craft/easy_mermaid_tail_costume/

Pattern Pieces

Next I needed to draw up my pattern pieces using my own daughters measurements and working out roughly how Arwen worked out her measurements in the tutorial.

Do you like the extra scribbles on the pattern pieces? 

Master 22 months  decided he would help me colour them in - he is just so helpful.

All my measurements are based on my daughters waist of 22.5" and I wanted the tail to reach her ankles (waist to ankle measurement was 22"), then I wanted the fin to hang down onto the floor

Supplies

I was lucky enough to have some shiny stretchy fabric in my stash (found at an op shop for $5), but I needed batting, so a trip to Spotlight was needed which is where I found this gorgeous, gorgeous tulle overlay that I knew my daughter would just love.    Now, if this tail was just for their dress up box, then I would have made do with what I already had, but as it was for a special occasion I splashed out and paid the $12 a metre for the overlay and had one very excited little girl when I got home. 

Special Note: see that pen I included in my supplies - it is my new favourite sewing item!   I had heard of a sewline fabric glue pen which I asked about at my local quilting shop.  While they didn't have one in stock, they did have this pen and assured me that it did the same thing - it does, and I love it.  

I used it to hold my overlay to the shiny (very stretchy & movable ) blue fabric - the glue dries clear, doesn't gum up your machine and meant that I only needed to add about 4 pins to the whole thing !

Sewing Instructions:

I followed Arwen's instructions for cutting out the fabric pieces, but to save time I didn't cut out the batting - just left it as rough rectangle.

I then basted my tulle overlay to my tail & fin pieces (one set only) using my wonderful, life changing glue pen and continued on following Arwen's instructions to sew it all together.

When I got to adding the batting, I just sat my pieces on top of the batting and pinned down the whole thing.   I then followed her instructions to sew it and cut off the extra batting afterwards.

Before adding on the waistband, I decided to stuff the fin with some polyfill.  I then hand stitched on the join of the tail to the fin to keep it all in the fin area (you can see a photo of the stuffed fin at the bottom of the page)

 

Because my material was so stretchy & soft, when I got to the waistband I added a light / medium weight fusible interfacing (about 2" Length x the Width of the waistband)  to half of the waistband to give it some strength.  

I also added some embroidered shell's, centered on the back of the waistband. 

Once I finished the changes to the waistband, it was back to Arwan's instructions to finish it off.

The last step of the tutorial is sewing on the Velcro to the waistband which I did and then  decided it needed one last touch, so I embroidered some more shells on some left over fabric, cut them out and hot glued them on to the waistband (I don't believe the hot glue will hold up in the wash, but it's unlikely that the tail will ever get washed so hopefully that won't be a problem :)

So there you have it, hopefully the sparkliest mermaid tail for a very happy little girl.

Coming up next is a quick post on the rest of her outfit and a special post on a very, very large Colossal Squid (that can made with just some felt & a glue gun)

Under the Sea Handmade Series - Invitations

My middle daughter (soon to be Miss 5) decided she would like a Mermaid Party like her older sister had - the only problem with that is :a) I get bored doing the same party over & over again, and
b) I don't want her to look back later and think I just re-did her older sisters parties for her (no need to aggravate the middle child syndrome!)

So I suggested that we instead do an "Under the Sea" party, which also worked out better as she was inviting a number of boys to her party and I'm not sure how many of them would want to come dressed as mermaids???

Now that the theme was decided, it was time to come up with an invitation that had a bit of a wow factor, but was still cheap to make (because lets face it, once the party is over, those invitations are going in the bin), which brings me to my handmade "Under the Sea" invite.

To make this, you will need the following (I made 20 invites with these supplies and it took me approx. 2 hours fro start to finish) :

• Paper CD holders - I already had these on hand (used them to hold giant cookies for teacher gifts one year).  I found them at a cheap store - 100 for $2
• 4 Containers of cheap clear hair gel ($2 a container)
  
• A scenic background - I purchased this background as I was in a hurry and it was exactly what I wanted, but if I had more time, then I would have searched the free pics available online and used those
• Card stock you can put through your printer - you could use normal printer paper, but I wanted some extra weight to support the CD case a bit
• Some small under the sea beads that I purchased off eBay - I got 50 for $5 including delivery (can't really beat that!).  If you didn't want to buy them, then some cute small sea shells straight off the beach would be very effective
• Zip lock bags - I made sure the ones I purchased did not have the white strip across them that you write on

And here is how it's done

1. Create or edit your scene in Power Point (or whatever program you use).  I changed the shape of my background to a circle and made it just larger than the circle on the CD cover
2. At this time, I also created the back of the invite with all the invitation details, again using Power Point and made the square just slightly smaller than the CD Cover
3. I then roughly cut around the circle and used double sided tape to stick it inside my CD envelope.
4. Next I scooped a really large tablespoon of hair gel into the zip lock bag and added in about 10 of my tiny glittery sea creatures.  I pressed all the air out of the bag and sealed it.  Once the bag was sealed, I smooshed all the gel and sea creatures to one corner at the bottom of the zip lock bag and folded some of the side of the bag in on itself and held it in place with a tiny bit of sticky tape at the top (this was necessary as my bags were wider than my CD covers - don't worry, you won't notice it once it's in the CD cover).
   
   My original intent was to use the seal of the zip lock to ensure no gel came out, but I didn't like the bulk the seal added to the invite, so once it was sealed I actually put sticky tape around the top of the bag (just below the seal) and cut the seal off.  I then used more sticky tape over the top to ensure no gel got out.
   
   At this point your invite is not looking so pretty with all that tape on it, but don't worry as it gets hidden once it goes into the CD cover
5. Put the zip lock bag into the CD case (making sure the side folded edge is at the back so you can't see it from the front ) .  I then just folded the leftover bag at the top and taped it down.  I then taped the flap of the CD cover down as well - again, not very pretty, but we cover it up!
6. Take your the square invite details page that you printed out and stick it right over the back, covering up all the tape & leftover zip lock bag in the process!  I started off using double sided sticky dots to hold the pieces to the back but ran out and used good old glue and that held just fine.
   
   And that's it, effective invites for not much money :)
   
   Coming up next up for this party is the birthday girls outfit - again with a how to included