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Round up the supplies from our list below and follow the directions in our tutorial to make your own umbrella jellyfish costume! Perfect for Halloween, dress up, cosplay, or as a theater costume, these jellyfish look really great.
Homemade Jellyfish Costume
When our daughter auditioned for the school play last year, she landed the role of that sassy, crabby sidekick to Ariel: Sebastian! We knew that she would rock that role (oh boy, did she ever!) and buckled up for months of rehearsals and a long list of other tasks that the parents would tackle, from costumes to set building.
When the costume committee put out the call for parent volunteers, I scanned the list of costumes that they needed help with. The costume wish list offered a range of options, from very simple craft contributions, all the way to more intricate outfits that were best left to parents who can sew (definitely not me)!
We decided to offer our help and try our hand at 10 jellyfish costumes. If you are at all familiar with The Little Mermaid, you know that the cast of characters features a variety of sea creatures in the chorus. 10 of the kids were slated to be jellyfish, so we got to work with our planning.
In the end, we really loved how these DIY costumes turned out! They looked fabulous on the stage and the ultimate “wow” factor was the battery-operated string of lights that lit up each jelly from the inside.
Check out the tutorial below and feel free to put your own personal spin on the color schemes, etc. As I mentioned above, these jellyfish costumes would work great for Halloween costumes, cosplay costumes, theater costumes, etc.
Umbrella Jellyfish Supplies
Round up the following craft supplies to re-create our jellyfish:
- Clear, deep umbrella
- Assorted ribbon in a variety of widths
- Zipties
- Scissors
- Tulle (assorted colors)
- Battery-operated fairy lights (plus batteries)
Specific Details for the 10 Jellyfish we made
- Ribbons: We used 1/2 inch glittery silver ribbon and 1.5-inch satin blue ribbon.
- Tulle: We used this 6-inch tulle. Each jellyfish featured 2 different colors of tulle. We used the following colors of tulle: white, royal blue, coral, light blue, lavender, turquoise, purple.
How to Make Umbrella Jellyfish Costumes
Note: There is a video tutorial that accompanies this post. It should be auto-playing at the top of the page. I highly recommend watching it at least once as it provides a detailed look at how we worked the tulle and ribbon onto the umbrella!
1. Cut the following pieces of ribbon and tulle for one jellyfish. This is only for the streamers that hang down off of the jellyfish. You will need additional ribbon and tulle for the top of the jellyfish, but you don’t need to measure that material out ahead of time.
- (4) 4.5 foot pieces of the 1.5 inch ribbon
- (8) 4 foot pieces of the .5 inch ribbon
- (4) 4 foot pieces of one color tulle
- (4) 4 foot pieces of a different color tulle
2. Open the umbrella. Starting at the top of umbrella, tie the end of a roll of tulle to a metal spoke.
3. Loop the tulle back and forth between the spoke and the umbrella’s plastic cover. Repeat this action on the 4 metal spokes.
4. Add batteries to the battery pack on the string lights. Weave the string lights around the top of the umbrella and down 4 of the metal spokes.
5. Use zipties to secure the battery pack in place on one of the metal spokes. I recommend making sure that the on/off switch is very accessible from whatever position you secure it in.
6. Weave the 1.5 inch ribbon around the top inside of the umbrella. Tie the ribbon ends in a knot around the starting/ending spoke.
7. Choose a color of tulle and repeat the same action you just did with the ribbon, only place the tulle around the bottom of the umbrella.
8. Take the ribbon and tulle that you pre-cut in step 1. Work your way around the umbrella, tying these strips all the way around. These will become the streamers that represent the jellyfish’s tentacles. We wrapped the 4.5 foot pieces of 1.5 inch ribbon around the metal umbrella spokes and let the excess fall. The rest of the streamers were tied to the bottom strip of tulle.
That’s it!
You can test out the jellyfish and make sure that the streamers don’t drag on the ground (if you are making this costume for a very short child).
Not only do the lights look GREAT in general, but they will also provide excellent visibility if you child wears this for nighttime trick or treating on Halloween!
And as for that play?
Well, the costumes looked pretty amazing in the theater, if I do say so myself! The show was incredible: the set, the props, the costumes, and those talented teens were all just absolute showstoppers!
I hope this umbrella jellyfish costume idea helps you as you plan your own costume! If you end up using our tutorial, please let us know how your costume turned out! Feel free to tag us on social media if you post a picture of it – we would LOVE to see it!
Be sure to check out the rest of our Halloween content while you’re here. Years and years of DIY ideas, recipes and printables for you to use!
