Under the Sea Party Costumes

At the weekend we attended the yearly fancy dress party over at The Beans. It was, as usual, an excellent do, though missing some of the usual suspects this year, but lovely anyway. I completely forgot to take photos, so I thought I’d mark the occasion with a display of our rather excellent costumes.

They decided they wanted to all go as characters from Finding Nemo; Fran took the lead role, particularly as her cleft has meant she’s always had an affinity for litle Nemo with his rocky start and his lucky fin.

We got lucky finding reduced orange beachwear in a sports shop and them machine sewed a black and white stripe on to the centre of it, made in crepe paper. Her fins were fans in orange crepe and her tailed had an extra stripe glued on to give her her third stripe. The mask was white and orange felt stuck to a masquerade mask with felt tip edges drawn in black.

Maddy wanted to be a jellyfish. She is our most naturally creative and did this all on her own except for a small bit of machining.

Two large circles in pink cotton for the hat which we then added tentacles to (from the inside) and I stitched it. She decorated it with 3D fabric paint and did the same to a top and shorts. She had planned to stitch the hat to a bobble hat after padding it with kapok type wadding, but didn’t need to in the end. She also made fronds for her wrists from pink voile and a pet squishy to take along.

Amelie was a rayfish; this turned out to be really effective. Blue clothes and a wing made in one piece from light jersey fabric with a thin tail stitched to the bottom.

We decorated the back with glitter Tulip Paint and white circles.

The wing was just pinned on and the cap, a foam affair for 99p from Hobbycraft, had Fimo eyes glued to it.

Josie wanted to be Squirt the Turtle. She sorted out green clothes (previously seen as an Ozian costume!) and I bought a cushion for a shell which she stained with tea and then decorated with fabric paints again. I stitched fleece should straps and a belt on to it which made it comfy.

Her cap also had Fimo eyes and the effect was adorable 🙂

It was a real team effort this year and they all worked very hard on them. I loved watching Maddy’s fronds waft about but Amelie’s was a surprise success – simple, but effective.