With Tandy's birthday so close to Halloween, costumes were a bit of a scramble this year. In the past, I have been able to do double duty with birthday outfits and Halloween costumes like Mary Poppins and the clown and tightrope walker. This year I had a plan for Avery's Cleopatra costume, but nothing for Tandy. It didn't help that she kept shifting her request. She went from an apple, to Fancy Nancy, to a mermaid. I had done Fancy Nancy before, and it would have been the right size for her this year. But, she finally settled on a mermaid, so the day before while she was at pre-k I went to work.
It had to include her favorite color, hot pink. The Vivid Fireworks turned out perfect since we thought it could be bubbles in the water. I've had the small piece of ruffle fabric in my stash for ages along with all of the other bits and pieces for the accessories. This was a no additional cost costume!!
The shirt is a complete mess. It is a few rectangles sewn on to a shirt, but I had to finagle it a bunch. It would be embarrassing if you looked close, but Tandy was happy. That is what counts.
I used the Modkid Rachel pattern to make the skirt. I omitted the left front side and cut the right front side down to match half of the back skirt. Then, I lengthened the pieces to get a maxi length dress minus the 4" ruffle. I used this super easy elastic waistband method, but I did stitch the elastic down all the way around the waist with a zig-zag stitch instead of just tacking it at the seams. As you can tell, I didn't bother to match prints.
