This happens every year in our home so I shouldn’t be surprised. I give my oldest daughter plenty of time to decide on a Halloween costume but most years we have several different costume ideas and reasons to make them. This year she made her annual SeaWorld Halloween Spooktacular costume then took a very long time to decide what she wanted to wear to a neighborhood party, classroom party and trick or treating. Her SeaWorld porcupine costume turned out adorable but she decided the day before our neighborhood party she wanted to dress up as a mermaid. With our house move, more DIY costumes simply weren’t in my time budget so I figured I would quickly run out to the Halloween costume store to pick up a mermaid costume while she was at school. That quick errand turned into a daylong unsuccessful search for a mermaid costume. Instead of a full mermaid costume, I ended up with mismatched pieces to put together the prettiest mermaid costume on our own. After watching a few tutorials on how to add a mermaid fin tail to leggings, I improvised and created an easy way to take your favorite metallic fish scale leggings from everyday wear to a mermaid costume complete with a tail.
How to add a mermaid fin tail to leggings
Supplies:
- Fish scale metallic leggings: pretty much every little girls clothing store has these available as they are currently very popular
- Three feet of glittered tulle
- Fabric glue or sewing machine
Cut tulle in half for two separate pieces then layer tulle and and fold several times to desired width and length of mermaid fin tail. Loosely wrap around each legging near bottom with tulle flaring out each legging side. Use fabric glue to line the edge of each side of legging then secure tulle. Gently push tulle glue to secure all layers but make sure glue does not seep through the leggings. Repeat on other legging so when standing together tulle on each leg looks like a mermaid fin tail. Cut tulle edges on flares to create a fanned out look for the tail. You could go really dramatic and make the tail large or something more simple with shorter tulle. Trim as desired and your pretty princess just turned into a mermaid. If you’re good with a sewing machine, instead of fabric glue, sew along the leggings edge to secure the tulle. Our costume is sewn because I didn’t have time to wait for fabric glue to dry before our Halloween party.
My daughter wore a turquoise glittered wig and matching lipstick. We also used Roman Queen makeup decals on her face but instead of placing the eye decals directly under her eyes like the packing suggested, we turned them down the side of her face to look like coral.
Glittered matching nails, glitter eyeshadow and coordinating fingerless gloves added to the costume.
We paired the leggings and gloves with a scalloped swimsuit top for the perfect DIY mermaid costume. This morning my daughter wore her costume to school and felt great knowing she wouldn’t match any other friends because we had mismatched pieces to put together the pretty look.
leggings | gloves | wig | swim top | lipstick | makeup decals
Do you have any last minute DIY Halloween costume projects happening at your house too?
If you’re not up for a DIY, check out these mermaid Halloween costumes.
