Some may think its crazy but I really start thinking about Halloween costumes months in advanced. I knew for the last couple years I wanted to do Ursula. I started to look around for a killer costume but could never find one that fit what I had in mind.
I tried to give up on the idea at one point because I knew it would be a crazy amount of work. Then, the ideas started to come. Then the costume was in the works. I seriously started this costume the beginning of September.
It became my second child! No joke. If you don't believe me ask those that had to be around me. My mom was so annoyed by me and Kelly was ready to kick me out because it took up the kitchen, the garage, all our conversations & all of his money.
When the costume began I was looking everywhere for ideas and tutorials. I found a few but not really a step by step guide. I think that was the funnest part about this costume! It wasn't something I could just follow a tutorial on. I had to come up with how I was going to do it!
A trip to Joann's later and I had the fabric. I was so excited to finally have it even though I had no clue how I was going to make it into six tentacles. A serious HUGE THANK YOU to my sister in law Krystal for her help in helping me cut the fabric & then surging it together for me! I couldn't have done it without her. No joke!
One side of the tentacle is a transparent sequin fabric and the other side is a mermaid scale purple fabric. Each tentacle is 5 feet long. So 30 feet total of tentacles will be the end product.
After all six tentacles were sewn the next guessing game happened. I needed to be able to have the tentacles keep a unique shape. It needed to be realistic. I sat and played with wire for days and finally with the help of my right hand girl Krystal we decided to have the wire braced in the tentacles so it would stay in place!
Each tentacle had about 8-10 braces glued into the inside that would hold the wire in place. I ended up adding a middle wire down the middle of each tentacle to hold it on a center point.
Wiring.
Once the tentacles had all of the braces glued it was time for wire. I used 20 gauge wire, it was sturdy but easy to bend and shape. I would cut 2 10 feet lengths and feed them through the braces. This took up a lot of time to feed each tentacle through. Then the center wire that I talked about was about 4.5 feet in length as well.
The stuffing:
This was something that came to me in the middle of the night. No joke laying in bed thinking about this costume. I kept looking at ways to stuff this sucker. Quitting batting would be expensive, heavy for the final product & lumpy. Foam would be expensive and hard to get in the tentacles. I then thought PACKAGING PEANUTS!
I instantly googled the cost of packaging peanuts at 2 am. I wasn't really thrilled about the cost because I knew I would probably need quite a bit of peanuts. Hello I'm filling 30 feet of tentacles.
So I jumped onto KSL in hopes someone who had just moved would have some didn't need them anymore.
I found some!!! I had Kelly pick them up after work, I was on cloud nine when he brought home my 6 bags of packaging peanuts! But then I realized they were white & green. That wasn't going to work. I need them black so when it was dark outside you wouldn't notice them through the transparent fabric.
Literally 12 spray paint cans later I had all the packaging peanuts spray painted. I also had a killer headache and an aching pointer finger but I didn't care I was that much closer to stuffing these bad boys!
Seriously I spent a solid week spraying peanuts during nap time!
You may be wondering why did you do a transparent fabric.. Who spray paints packaging peanuts?
Well I'm crazy and couldn't just have normal tentacles I needed LIGHTS! I ended up finding battery powered lights online at the dollar store & at Walmart. That is why I needed black peanuts & transparent fabric because my costume was going to glow in the dark.
Once the tentacles were filled to the brim with black peanuts they were able to get the crowning glory of the lights being added. One light strand is a 5 foot LED purple rope light & the other was a 6 foot LED purple light strand that could switch from blinking, fading and a solid light.
At the top of the tentacles I made another brace so the wiring of the battery packs would hold in place while I was walking.
Each tentacle is powered by 5 batteries.
The next problem was how were these tentacles going to work on a costume? This was something that took much of my thoughts. I was high maintenance when it came to this part of the costume.
What it had to be:
It had to be transportable
Easy to take on and off
Able to walk in easily
Literally I spent one whole night talking about what this had to be like. I kept talking about a hoop so it would twist when I walk but it would be easier to hook the tentacles too as well. I wasn't sure it would work at all. When Kelly and I started thinking about it we came up with the idea of using some of the gas plastic pipe that they use at his work. He got me some from the dumpster the next day at work. We had to experiment with the size a ton.
The picture below was when it was at it's biggest size of 2.5 feet. It then got cut down to 14" being the final and perfect size.
And I may have goofed off a few times throughout the project...
We then were able to take the excess wire that was poking out of the tentacles and wrap them onto the hoop. Kelly helped me drill holes through the pipe so we could wire the battery packs onto the hoop as well. This made it so it was easy to turn the lights on and off.
I wasn't kidding when I said these things took up our life for a solid month.
The next issue came... I had to come up with a way that I could have these on and off of me within seconds. There was no way that I would be able to drive with 30 feet of tentacles on me nor could I even ride in a vehicle with these on.
My first idea was to glue ribbon in different places on the hoop to lift the hoop off the ground so it would hang about 6" off the ground so about mid calf. I would then take the ends of that ribbon and pin them to a maxi skirt so when I was done wearing the costume I could just slide the maxi skirt off and the tentacles would be hooked and ready to transport.
After realizing that the tentacles were much heavier we came up with an idea of a using a belt. This belt had multiple holes in it so it was easy to attach the ends of ribbons to the belt. Also this belt was able to hold the weight of these tentacles as well. The belt could easily be hidden under my sequin dress since it sat right under my bra & the belt was still easy to get on and off.
....I thought we had it all figured out till I started to walk.
The tentacles would flip on their side, lay on top of the each other.. it was hot mess. That was when we got some heavy duty fishing line and went to town on tying them so they would hold each other up without much tipping when I would walk. I also had a string on the tentacles that were closest to me tied onto my wrists so I could move them like a puppet making it look more whimsy and octopus like.
PS. Ursula isn't really an octopus she's more of a squid. Disney couldn't afford to do two more tentacles and they didn't really know how to do an animation with that many as well. Hence why she only has six.
Once the fishing line was done the finishing touches became so relaxing. If you notice on an Octopus how they have those little suckers on their tentacles. I knew I needed some to complete the look of the whole thing. So... that's when I went to the dollar store (I practically lived their the month of September) to find some felt pads. (The little circles that you put on the bottom of chairs so they don't scratch your floors...) ...Of course they don't make white ones so a couple late nights of painting a solid amount of them white and I was able to stick them on the back side. These not only would finish the tentacles but I knew it would help take the brunt of the walking as well.
Ursula's Beauty Routine:
...well lets just say it isn't easy.
I copied a link to my Instagram where you can see the full time-lapse of this hour transformation in just one minute!
I copied a link to my Instagram where you can see the full time-lapse of this hour transformation in just one minute!
I used Elmer's Washable Glue Stick to glue my eyebrows down.
I really loved using the Urban Decay Electric Pallette & Jaclyn Hill's Pallette from Morphe.
For the body makeup I used Mehron Paradise AQ in purple &white. I got them both from Amazon.
To see a time-lapse of me doing the makeup check out my Instagram post of it here
The other thing that was fun about this costume is playing with the size.
You are probably thinking what are you talking about. But because Ursula is quite a big octopus. I have a "fat suit"... wanna see the difference.
This first picture is me without the fat suit
Also the best part was when we were trick or treating it kept me super warm!
All the Amazon..
Ursula's sequin black dress is from Amazon. This is the exact dress
Ursula's stunning platinum wig
(The wig came with a asymmetrical cut to it so I simply trimmed the sides to match & sprayed the crap out of it with Got2B Glued Hairspray & bobby pins. I let the bobby pins sit in it overnight to help hold the shape.)
Purple Mehron AQ paint: http://amzn.to/2lFNTMx
White Mehraon AQ paint: http://amzn.to/2gUo8TA
Fat suit: http://amzn.to/2gU8Myj
King Triton's Staff.
This was something that I wanted to do but wasn't quite sure how. One day I was looking at a bunch of halloween accessories and stumbled upon this devil pitchfork. I grabbed it and stuck it my cart thinking somehow I'll make this work! On my way home I did a little happy dance. I grabbed my gold spray paint and within 5 minutes this thing was now a perfect accessory for my costume. Let alone the whole pitchfork was $1.
Urusla Earrings & Necklace:
I seriously did all the searches in the world to find the necklace and earrings for Ursula. I ended up finding a necklace online and got it for $6. The earrings weren't so easy but when I went to Joann's I found a bag of shells.. I bought it. I dug through the bag and found the perfect match of shells that would work for earrings. I was going over to Krystal's house that night and we ended up painting & glittering them.. she even had the earring hooks for me as well. Seriously she saved me so many times with this costume!
Trunk or Treat at our ward was filled with all the sea creatures!
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