Seahorse Costume

My daughter, Catalina, and I spent a long time watching the seahorses in the Scripps aquarium in La Jolla on vacation last summer, so she decided she wanted to be one for Halloween. First I traced her silhouette on easel paper, then I used our projector to project a picture of an actual seahorse onto her silhouette so I could get the dimensions right. I used old interlocking foam mats that we've kept around to make the back and tail and used 1/4 pex tube for the ribs. I covered that with a dark blue spandex suit that I sewed with much frustration making it up as I went along. For the head I shaved down an old bicycle helmet and then glued Eva foam pieces I had cut out from my original projected drawing to it. I used plastidip to seal the Eva foam and dark blue spray paint as a base color. The eyes are plastic Christmas ornament balls cut in half and then filled a bit with a two part resin. First time with resin so they look a bit like cataracts! But I painted the Iris with nail polish to get the desired effect. The whole thing was covered in this Ombre sequins fabric we found at a discount fabric store. I just glued that on in pieces to the spandex and the head. I'm surprised at how well it turned out. There is a zipper in the front and the whole body is one piece which meant she couldn't sit in it, but I wanted the tail to be just right and I've had trouble in the past with detachable tails not hanging right!