Refashion Co-op: Couples Halloween Costume

I have been waiting for this Halloween for quite sometime now. I have always always wanted to be a mermaid for Halloween but I have only seen 1 adult mermaid costume that was well over $100 (not in my budget) But thank goodness I'm into this refash gig so I can make my own mermaid costume! So, this year the husband and I will be a mermaid and a pirate.

We picked up these brown dress slacks, white dress shirt (with awesome french cuffs) and a pleather jacket at the Salvation Army!

I started by removing the front pocket...

and removed the collar.

I sewed the raw edges that were made by taking out the original collar.

I removed the top 3 buttons and cut 3 small holes where the buttons were sewn onto the shirt. The I laced it up with some brown suede cord.

I removed the collar, the sleeves and the lining in the sleeves on the pleather jacket.

I had to sew the raw edges from when I removed the sleeves and collar. Also I folded back the front of the jacket to make the front of the vest more open and sewed that together.

The husband did not find any boots to wear with his costume so I got creative and turned the jacket sleeves into spats that looked like pirate boots!

I seam ripped the sleeves down about 1/4 of the way so that the top of the spats could be folded down.

I used the part of the sleeve that connected with the shoulder as the toe part of the 'boots'.

Added 3 nautical buttons onto the spats.

Last thing, I took in the bottom part of the pants from about the knee down. I had to cut down the bulk of the pants so they could be tucked into the spats.

Arrrrrrgh matie!

I started with this beautiful emerald green evening dress and a plain pink bra. I scored this dress for $3, I'm sure you can imagine my excitement at this deal!

I removed the pretty bow and saved it for something later.

Since I turned the dress around and made the side slit into a front slit, I had to even out the top of the dress.

As a test run I folded over the top of the dress and I really liked the result, but the ugly side was folded down.

I cut the top off and resewed it so that the satin side would show when folded down.

Removed the excess material from the underside of the top of my 'tail'.

As for my mermaid top I purchased some stick on pearls and jewels from the papercraft section of the craft store.

These were super easy to apply and they are really stuck onto the material. I hot glued a shell in the middle, some party beads into the bottom and the ruffles onto the top.

A few last details: a hair comb that I glued shells onto and this beautiful coral necklace. I found the coral necklace piece at Hobby Lobby and paired it with he matching chain.