Sunday, November 20, 2011

A Family Affair


My husband can't resist getting in on the Halloween action...

I decided to be a jellyfish this year. Thanks to my husband's great idea to recycle the EL wire from last year's costumes, I was a phosphorescent jellyfish. He did all the wiring to make my tentacles glow, but otherwise it was easy.

I started with a clear plastic umbrella I got a t Wal-Mart for $12.00. I measured the circumference of the widest part and bought that much fabric plus a 1/4 yard more. (I think I ended up buying about 3 1/2 yards.) I sewed the two cut ends so I had a large tube, and then added a casing for a drawstring into both selvage ends. One end I made as tight as I could and poked the end of the umbrella through it - covering the umbrella. The other end, I drew up tightly inside the umbrella and tied tightly around the handle.

I cut small slits in the fabric to allow the EL wire to hang down through the fabric. Finally I sewed long strips of tulle and wired ribbon around the bottom edge of the umbrella to create the tentacles. I also added a bunch of tentacles to the handles to try to camouflage it, and then I just wore black so I could fade in to the background. The small blue circles were made from glow-stick bracelets I sewed to the outside just before we went out to trick-or-treat.

Hubby decided to be an angler fish...

He paper-mâchéd the fish body around a balloon, painted it, and added the EL wire to highlight the fins and the tail. The eyes were made from ping pong balls, cut in half, and illuminated by LEDs from behind. The teeth were done in glow in the dark Fimo clay.




I think we looked pretty cool - one of the Island high school kids said we were "epic," which, I think, is a good thing...

6 comments:

Suzanne said...

Absolutely amazing...so fun and creative!

The Hubby said...

The EL wire for the jellyfish was run through an 8 channel sequencer. I coded this to light up each segment randomly. It made it look more organic than just plain EL wire.

The light over the fish's mouth is a RGB LED run by a Arduino microcontroller. I coded this to randomly change color. The eyes are white LEDs also run through the Arduino and coded to fade and flicker. The EL wire on the fins was static for this mask.

Allie said...

Unbelievably creative - these are wonderful!!!

Heidi said...

Brilliant!

Erin said...

You guys are so clever!

Manoute said...

Fantastic! You are so creative!