DIY Fish Costume For the Family (No Sewing)

This post was also featured on Parents.com.

I never liked Halloween.

And then I had kids.

Now, every year, I love coming up with a fun theme for our family’s Halloween costumes. (Last year, we did surf & turf.) And let me tell you: finding a family costume that’s not tacky or obnoxious can be harder than potty-training my 3-year-old (which I also happen to be doing right now). Yes, I am a glutton for punishment.

Everything in this DIY Halloween costume is easy, and I made all 3 of our looks for less than $7 total.

My son’s goldfish costume took some time, but it was super easy (just repetitive). Perfect naptime task. I took an old orange onesie, and then went to the fabric store and bought 2 yards of orange grosgrain ribbon, 1/2 yard of bright orange felt, 1/4 yard of lighter orange felt and 1 square each of white and blue felt. For the fish scales, I made a paper pattern and then used a regular pen to trace out a billion little scales. I cut them all out, and then use fabric glue to adhere each of them to the onesie.

Here is my goldfish with some of his little animal friends, a flamingo and a bear!

For the fish headpiece, I cut 2 side pieces big enough to fit his head. (It was a little tricky to get the size right, but I just cut out 2 larger-than-I-needed pieces, and kept putting them up to his head, and cutting down to size. The great thing about felt is that it doesn’t fray, and you don’t need to finish or hem it, so it’s really easy for projects like these, where you’re just eyeballing it.)

For the “mohawk,” I cut a bunch of long rectangular pieces in varying sizes. I pinned them between the 2 side head pieces, and then sewed together, so that the mohawk is held in place by the same center seam that holds the 2 side pieces together. (You could use fabric glue, or even staples, if you don’t have a sewing machine.) Then, I attached the grosgrain ribbon ties and glued on the eyes. (My husband wanted one as well so I made 2 of these bad boys!)

Oh, and of course I had to add a tail! Again, I just eyeballed the felt to cut out 2 mirrored pieces for the tail, and 2 mirrored pieces for the little strip that attached it to the onesie. I sewed the mirrored pieces to each other, connected the tail to the strip, and then sewed the whole shebang to the butt of the onesie. (Again, if you don’t have a sewing machine, fabric glue and a couple staples or safety pins would also work.)

Now, onto Mama’s look! I was newly-pregnant with our second baby, and I wanted to incorporate my tiny bump, without it being obnoxious or gory. (For real. Search ‘pregnant Halloween costumes’ on Pinterest and you will be horrified! Painted pumpkin vampire belly, no thanks.) After finishing the fish costumes, I had a bunch of scraps, so I decided to make a little fish out of felt and attach it to my blue maternity dress. Since I wanted to reuse the dress for the remainder of my pregnancy (duh!) I used a safety pin, rather than fabric glue, to attach it.

It was fun because, even though my stomach wasn’t that big, people totally got it when we were out trick-or-treating.

But of course, the little goldfish was the biggest hit of all!

(Especially to our dear next-door neighbors, where we ended the night by raiding their candy stash!)