DIY Finding Nemo Costume

When Brady told me that he wanted to be Nemo for Halloween, I was ecstatic.  What could be cuter then dressing up a 2 year old as a fish for Halloween?  Nothing.  But.... then when I got online to buy one, the only sizes available were in 4T or above.  Now, Brady's tall, but let's be real, I don't need a Halloween outfit to last him for years to come, so I needed to get one that actually fit him.

So, that led me to a dilemma that I did not want to deal with.  Making the costume myself.  Let me be honest, first, I tried to talk this kid out of being Nemo time after time, but somewhere along the line Brady got himself a memory, and refused to back down.  Nemo it was.  First, I looked into trusty Pintrest.  I found this DIY Nemo outfit.  It was adorable... though, I knew I needed to put my own spin on it to make it more "Nemo-ish". 

So, I first started with these items:

A 3T zippered sweatshirt and matching sweatpants (I found mine at Kohl's... thanks KK for helping!)
A hot glue gun
6 orange felt squares
6 yellow felt squares
6 white felt sqaures
2 black felt squares
2 orange starched banners (for Nemo's crown)
Scissors
A tin can that was bent into an oval for tracing all the scales

First, I cut out Nemo's tail with 2 of the felt squares.  I folded it in half when I cut to make sure it was symmetrical.

Then, I traced out what seemed like hundreds of scales in each color and aligned them in a Nemo-like pattern.  I made 2 stripes of white to make it like a clown fish.

Then, I took the black felt and made oval-like "lines" to separate the white stripe like a clown fish has.  I will be honest, I tried to just marker in these lines with a Sharpie and it did not work, so I had to go this route.  What's nice about working with felt it the lines don't have to match up exactly with each scale because they are flexible once you start gluing.  I was nervous that I was going to have to spend 4 hours making these pieces, but it was pretty simple once I realized that it would form to the bend of the scale.

When making the front of the sweatshirt, make sure not to glue on the zippered part.  On the front of this one, the middle scales are all glued to the left side of the sweatshirt (when looking at it) and "hide" the zipper."

Next, I made the eyes.  You can use a drinking glass or some other bigger oval to make the white part of the eye if you like, I just cut and it turned out okay.  The orange part of the eye is the same size as the scales, and the black part was a scale that I just took off the edges so it would fit inside the orange part.

The crown is made from the stronger, starchy banner felt.  It is made from 6 rectangular pieces that are all the same size.  I bent the bottoms and glued them on opposite sides of the hood so they work with each other to hold each other up.  Then I covered the parts glued to the hood with the softer orange felt to make it look nicer.

Luckily, Brady was at daycare when I was making this so my only breaks were to tend to Lola.  I was worried that Brady wouldn't like the costume when he got home and tell me that it looked nothing like Nemo.  But..... I was wrong!  He immediately started petting it and kept saying (excited) "It's Nemo!  It's Nemo, Mom!  It's Nemo!  Nemo has a tail!"  And.... my heart was filled with joy.  We, of course, had to take it out for a spin to make sure it looked okay too.  :)