Mermaid Doll in the Making

I am finally finished with Lydia's mermaid doll, with only days to spare before her birthday.

Above is the finished doll and below is what she looked like when I found her at the thrift store for $5. 

She was dressed like a clown, but I thought she would make a much better mermaid!

When I removed her costume I discovered really weird shoulders, curved pointy boots, and long green tubes that made up the clown pants.

One pant leg became the tube of the mermaid tail.  The other pant leg was cut up to make the top, cover the shoes, and make puffy sleeves to disguise the shoulders.

 Since then I have been hand sewing embellishments worthy of a mermaid princess.

The tail has taken the most time, sewing ribbon in ruffled layers to add dimension and hide some stitching.

I have probably spent more time on this one doll costume, than I did on all three mermaid costumes worn by myself, Lydia, and Aunt Jen for Halloween 2008.

 One more picture of Lydia as a mermaid in 2008.

 Now two of Lydia in mermaid garb circa 2011.  This time I used photoshop instead of a needle and thread to make the transformation.  I a still working out the kinks in these images.  These started out as the fairy pictures from our trip to the local nature center.  I altered the color on Lydia's clothing and then placed in images that I got off of Graphics Fairy. 

We will not be wearing these, or any, costumes at Lydia's party but I always like to have framed pictures that fit the theme scattered around. I have a few beachy ocean pictures and then these mermaid pictures.