Ursula Octopus Costume Tutorial - Part 2

In Part 1 of my tutorial, I covered the construction of the body and tentacles of the Ursula octopus costume. Now, I'll go over the final detail pieces:

First, the skirt. I searched high and low to find a skirt or fabric from a thrift store to use for the skirt piece, but couldn't find anything that would work. I wanted the skirt to simulate the ocean beneath the body (so that the octopus appears to be floating or swimming) and to hide my legs. Since I couldn't find anything second-hand that fit the bill, I ended up having to buy fabric and sew this myself.

I searched through the remnants section of my local fabric store and came across this black and blue sheer fabric that has a vaguely "tie dye" kind of pattern to it that also made me think of water/waves. Since it was an end-of-the-bolt piece and a remnant, it was only a few dollars. But the fabric was too sheer and dark to show up properly, so I bought a piece of lavender fabric to place underneath. It really helps highlight the print on the sheer fabric. This fabric was something like $2 a yard, so all told with the thread, elastic, etc. I spent something around $8 for the skirt piece.

I just sewed a simple skirt out of 2 yards of fabric, so that it would be extra wide. Once the elastic was put in place, the top of the skirt bunched and gathered together -- which is what I wanted, so that it pushes out and lays in an A frame shape. Once the lavender skirt was sewn, I attached the sheer fabric to the top.

Close-up of the fabric pattern:

On to the accessories! Ursula has earrings that are made from some sort of purple auger shells and a large sea snail necklace charm. I decided to make these myself, rather than purchase real shells. I used Crayola Model Magic clay to sculpt them. This gave me the benefit of them being lightweight and durable. Since I'll be wearing this costume for a Disneyland Halloween party, I'll be bumped into and upside down on rollercoasters... it's better to be bonked in the face with 1 oz of foamy clay than 1 lb of actual shell!

After they dried, I gave them a quick coat of paint and then hot glued a black ribbon to the necklace charm.

All that's left is to customize the wig that I bought!