Halloween LED Jellyfish Costume

This is a visually stunning fancy dress costume using LED rope lights and a plastic washing basin to create a deep sea bioluminescent jellyfish thing.

Perfect for Halloween, or any party where it's going to be dark. People will stop in their tracks to start dancing round you, or simply have a spasm. You will feel like a total attention whore, but you will love it too.

Step 1 Summary

You are going to get a plastic basin, and use glue and cable ties to secure a load of LED rope lights to the inside, then (optionally) rewire them to a central power supply. You make it wearable by cable tying a skateboard helmet to the inside of the translucent basin.

Comments

[Powerhouse]

excuse me I am new to this Instructables thing and I have a budget. might I ask how much this will all cost? I thank you a lot for this project, I like LED things.

[Tigerlilymama]

I LOVE this jellyfish hat!!! Planning on making one this year to wear to Bear Creek Music Fest in November....I am also on a budget & the LED strands seem to be quite pricey...have you had any luck finding a good deal/alternative?

[Powerhouse]

I built this for less than $50, the link that he used for the US is the best deal I have found. I ordered about 25, assuming some would be broken. I couldn't find a basin so I made a dome of Knex building pieces and covered it in a trash bag. Good luck!

[cchambers3]

Hi I love this idea and perfect for a marine theme for a festival coming up. Do you know the best place to buy the light ropes? I found Alter e glow best price but not sure if they are long enough. Thanks! :)

[maheesa]

For wiring the positive terminal, do you solder to the spring?

[deadinsect]

I did, yeah

[shuberty]

I made this for my 6 year old son for Halloween - was a huge hit. People stopped us and took pictures as we went down the street. Only suggestion was to not put the LED strings in front of his face - I think he was seeing the blinking lights in his sleep for a few days. I think next year I'll make another, so my two sons can be a "swarm".

[sewer72]

I'm in a deep-water aerobics class. Would this work in a pool?

[BuffaloNickel]

like not at all, electricity+water=no!

[ajam123]

More like an instant seizure costume... ;P

[ckdkjunk]

This is awesome. I will be adding these LED lights to my son's rocket ship costume. If I wire as instructed...will all the LED strands flash at the same time and in the same pattern or will they be flashing out of sync with each other, as they would if I just turned them all on independently? Thanks for your post. Excellent!

[deadinsect]

when you switch them all on together, they start all in sync for a few seconds, then get slowly out of sync due to variations in each strand...! if you were a stickler for wanting them to "wave" in sync you could build a timing circuit that turned the power on and off about once a second.... either way it looks cool....! enjoy

[sibiria]

This is so awesome!!! If I am going to halloween party this is my costume :)

[psycho.sloth]

I have been browsing this site for months and this is probably the most awesome -ible I've come across. Sooooooo creative, fun, amusing, and cute! Thank you.. I now have something to wear on my 21st birthday. :)

[daphnegirl]

Hi, Just wanted to send you some pix of my jellyfish costume from this past H'ween that was inspired by yours -- I simplified it by using glow-necklaces duct-taped to a salad bowl 'cause the word "solder" is not in my vocabulary :) The pix are kinda crap 'cause every other one was taken with the flash on, rendering me just some dork with a bowl on her head. Looked GREAT in the dark, though! Thank you SO much for the inspiration; everyone dug it! Cheers! Joanie

[deadinsect]

thanks! pics with flash do look really stupid, I shold have warned people about that in the text! ant

[jasmines]

This is awesome. I love it!

[chakuseki]

This costume was the most fun I've had at Halloween, the people loved it here in DC. I'll put up some pics when I get em. Thanks again deadinsect!

[xand3r]

I made this for Halloween this year. Everyone loved it, thanks for the idea!

I got a $6 hard hat from Home Depot, removed the innards, and hot glued some sponges to the inside (otherwise the hard hat sat too high).
Also didn't bother with the zip ties, just hot glued the heck out of it, which worked fine. In fact, I burnt out a couple during wiring and couldn't remove them! Ended up just cutting the bad tentacles off and gluing on more next to them.

Best costume idea ever, thanks so much! What are you planning next??

[gsurov]

just made mine for halloween on friday! need to find a white jumpsuit. but can't wait to get out roaming the streets in nyc and inducing a dance floor seizure! wear you're sun glasses.

[miaou]

is the "connect all the LEDs together" step necessary, or could you just put batteries in each of the individual light strands?

[deadinsect]

you can do that. the strands all come with batteries. Each one lasts about one night - 6 hours?

[miaou]

Thanks to you, I now have a costume idea for a halloween party I'm organizing :D Do you have any other less helmety options for the basin? Like some kind of hat that ties around the head. Or do you think it would weigh too much if there was no helmet?

[WonderWheeler]

I think women would look great in these too.

[deadinsect]

I was just at a music festival (bestival) in the UK, and loads of people had made these. chicks do look good in them.

[DELETED_craz meanman]

(removed by author or community request)

[deadinsect]

pretty mauled, but just double cable tie them and go with them. On the LED ropes I had, there is a small circuiot board at the top of the rope - make sure this can't bend by having it above the first cable tie. If it's a hardcore dance party (like an electronic music rave) then people will be quite friendly grabby rather than aggressive grabby and it's all fine. unless hardcore has a different meaning than I think!? go for it.

[pjak]

This looks mint! As Im sure youre aware this years Bestival theme is 30000 freaks under the sea- question is can I nick your idea or are you using it this year? Great costume Paul

[deadinsect]

go for it. am going to rent or lend it someone though. more fish the merrier, ant

[fernandonh]

I just ordered the LED ropes online... I just need to get out there and find myself a nice basin. Thank you for the great costume idea. I will be wearing at Burning Man this year and I have a feeling it's going to be a success!

[deadinsect]

my friends are going all the way to burning man from the UK - I'll tell them to look out for jellyfish!!!

[fernandonh]

That would be awesome... tell them to look for me. I bought the tentacles but I am having a hard time finding a decent basin. I will figure something out. You should come to burning man Deadinsect!

[pedaleo]

Can you please help me with details on doing the electrical connections. I'm not very good at this...

[Powerhouse]

Pedaleo, I think I can help you. Just connect all the bottom terminals of the LED ropes with wires together then repeat with the top ones. The two end terminals go as follows: one goes to the switch and the other goes to the battery pack. Do not use a pushbutton switch.

[deadinsect]

hi pedaleo - can you be more specific? the wiring up of the jellyfish is fiddly and time-consuming, but the electronics behind it is very simple - all the lights are re-wired in paralell - if you aren't sure what this means I think you should probably find someone who can explain in person, as it's quite a lot to explain over the internet....!

[crbnmnxide]

I absolutely love this idea. :) Any idea how long the batteries in those necklaces last? I'm trying to decide if I just want to risk using batteries alone... I would probably just use it for Halloween, so would just need it for one night. Thanks!

[deadinsect]

I think you would get away with it for 6 hours or so?! ant

[t_roy]

Ok i hooded everything up right. But the batteries seem to get very hot.

[Shifrin]

Sweet, That is Awesome!

[AngryPuppy]

Great tutorial, I'm just putting the finishing touches to my own jellyfish costume for tonight.

It was *IMPOSSIBLE* to find a round plastic wash basin / salad bowl in Belfast, I checked several pound shops and every store with a Home section I could think of. I bought some awful alternatives but luckily my mum is an artsy type and has reels of beer tubing lying around, so I've constructed a kind of dome skeleton out of that and it's going to be coverered with a white sheet.

Using more tubing cable tied to a helmet the whole thing is elevated above my head a bit, and I've filled the dome with five or so of the LED lights, comes through the white clothe really nicely. Can't wait to get out, I'll try and get some pictures but it'll have to be off a friends camera.

Didn't really have the time to do the wiring, and with the cloth jellyfish it might not have been as practical, but I ran one of the LED necklaces when they first arrived and it did indeed last a good six hours or so. Now if I can only stop playing with them before tonight they should last rightly.

Cheers again!