I Wanna be Rainbow Fish - a costume DIY

This weekend the hubbs was very kind and gave me most of the day Saturday to myself. He took the kids to some festivals with some friends and then back to their house to watch A&M play. If you know me at all  you probably know that football season is my least favorite thing about fall.
Anyway I decided to take advantage of the time and make the costumes for the kids. I was afraid that I'd go into labor and they wouldn't have anything to wear. Otherwise, who are we kidding, I would have procrastinated until next weekend then scrambled around trying to throw something together. In addition to Halloween, Emma has a book character parade, a scarecrow parade, and they are both in a wedding ALL this month. Thats a lot of costumes right? So today I'll start with Eli's.  After a sting of things he wanted to be he has decided to be Rainbow Fish, you know, from that book?

First I was like "Really? I know some people really like this book but we've only read it a couple of times." I figured they must have read it at school recently because honestly it was a weird request. The more I thought about it though, I decided "two birds, one stone..." Emma has that book character parade I mentioned earlier. It might take some convincing but maybe she'll go for it (if not she can always be one of the 50 million princess.) 

Enter pinterest, its so nice not to have to go to the effort of having an original thought ever. 

I did some looking and found this adorable Nemo costume, DIY included, by Maggie over on her Mighty Girl blog. I was quite certain with a few tweaks this would was the perfect model. 

I started by looking for a blue hoodie at the thrift store. No such luck. But I did score Eli's whole outfit for the wedding for less than $10 and Emma's basic scarecrow outfit. I was tempted to head to the fabric store and round up the felt but decided to go to Walmart first and make sure I could find a blue hoodie, or there was going to have to be a change of plans.  I hate shopping there but, sometimes you can't beat a good deal and for $3.88 I found the blue hoodie (it had a design on the front but I knew I was going to cover it anyway.) 

Let me go full disclosure right here, this is a long tutorial and picture heavy so if you are just here to look at the finished project skip on down to the end.  

There was a pretty good list of materials on the Mighty Girl blog so I just took a picture of my pile of materials so that you could check out what I had. It was my experience that for a 3T, I got a way with maybe 15-20 pieces of felt instead of 30, I used 3 different colors of blue. 

Don't forget the TV remote, it takes a while to cut all the circles!

Not pictured or maybe not used on the other blog is:

-spray adhesive

-2 pieces of stiff felt (for the crown) 

-the small clay pot bottom thing (I used this for tracing scales instead of a can. It was left over from another project and has come in handy many times.) 

-1 piece each of black felt and white felt (for the eyes,) and a light blue (for the shiny scales)

-the glitter FLAKES (for the shiny scales) 

Start by trace 4 circles onto the light blue felt. Take them outside (this stuff is really sticky and really smelly) and spray them with the glue then sprinkle on your glitter flakes. I dumped the excess glitter back in the shaker- never know when  you need more glitter flakes- then set them somewhere to dry. I started here to make sure they were completely dry when I was ready to attach them.

Now you are ready to start tracing and cutting the blue felt circles. I got 4 circles to each piece of felt. I found that I could layer 2 pieces just fine and really up to 4 when I was feeling tired and impatient.  MAKE SURE to leave 2 pieces out for the tail.

I used the two pieces I set aside to cut and assemble the tail. I drew it out with marker first.

Next I did the eyes. I cut 2 circles on white the same size as the scales. Then I cut down 2 of my blue circles to be a little smaller and 2 black circles a little smaller than that.  Finally, I cut two white shapes out that I can only describe as "comma shaped." Then I glued them together, white, blue, black, then your commas. (see picture) 

I also cut out the fin for the hood of the costume. This is where you use your stiff felt.  I did this part a lot different than the Nemo fish example. Rainbow Fish has a much different shape.  I just looked at a picture of the fish and did the best I could. I drew the design on one piece, with the marker until I had what I wanted. Leave about an extra inch on the bottom for attaching to the hood. It helped to lay the hood on the felt and trace the shape of the top of the hood. (Wow I really should have taken more pictures here)  I layered my two pieces and cut the shape then turned the marker side in and glued them together (all but the extra inch on the bottom.) Then I folded the outward so that if you were to lay the seam where the two pieces meet, flat on the table, the fin stands up.  

Finally, it was ready for assembly. This it basically what I had (plus the hoodie)

I started by gluing the tail to the back part of the hoodie. I just glued it along the band that was already there (you can see where I laid it out on the pictures above.)

I glues the fin to the top, each inch wide piece to either side of the seam on the top of the hoodie. Then glued my eyes on. I put the comma shape toward the front (see below)

Then I flipped it to the front because I wanted to make sure I had enough scales to cover the design (there was WAY more than enough.) I laid out each row alternating colors. I wanted the scales to cover the zipper so I applied the glue to the hoodie instead of the felt that way I didn't accidentally glue the zipper together. I started at the shoulder and since you are layering them I started with just one line of glue across the top. I filled in and glued down as needed. I was also careful not to glue my pockets down, we all need extra candy storage! I only used one of the 3 shiny scales on the front

Finally I flipped it over and did the back layering and alternating colors. I used the last 3 shiny scales randomly on the back as well.  I was pretty impressed with my handy work in the end. I would have hung it on a hanger for the picture but I felt like you needed the full effect of the top fin too. I did not do the sleeves but I had more than enough if you wanted to you could. 

You can kind of get a better idea of the eyes and the top fin in this one.

I can't wait to reveal pictures of him in this, it is pretty adorable. Tomorrow I'll add a quick scarecrow tutorial, although I know all my crafty readers are more than able to come up with their own scarecrow idea.