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Step 6Make the Treasure Chest
Remove the lid of from your cooler.
We started with a huge cooler because we needed one that was deep enough for a mermaid to realistically sit it. To make the costume more manageable, the finished chest should be narrow enough to fit through a doorway.
Cut the Styrofoam cooler to size. Using a bread knife, cut the cooler in half. Determine how much of the Styrofoam you need to remove and cut equal amounts off either half. It helps to have a long straight edge and a marker to keep your lines straight.
Measure your mermaid's hips. Cut out a section of the cooler large enough for her to fit in. Be sure to leave enough room for her to walk but keep it fairly snug at the waist as this will help to hold up the finished costume.
Glue the cooler back together with epoxy adhesive. Use masking tape to hold it together while the epoxy sets.
Add a lock and rim with cardboard and masking tape. Build a shelf for the loot to sit in and secure it with tape. Add drink holders by taping plastic beer cups to the chest.
Cover the entire chest with papier mache. We used newspaper strips dipped in white glue diluted with warm water.
Spray paint the edge and inside of the chest. We used two different colours of gold spray paint: "hammered metal" for the rim and "gold leaf" for the inside.
Paint the rest of the chest with craft paint. We first painted it white and then brown before adding a faux bois effect with acrylic paints and details with markers.
Add some bling! Using a hot glue gun, glue down some mari gras beads and anything else you can find that sparkles. We also added some sea shells and glass beads.
Make belt loops. We used duct tape to connect the chest to the costume wearer's belt and hold it up.
Add a skirt. Using the lining from the mermaid tail dress, we added a piece of fabric to the underside of the chest's shelf. This can be tucked into the costume wearer's pants to keep loose treasure from falling out of the chest.
We started with a huge cooler because we needed one that was deep enough for a mermaid to realistically sit it. To make the costume more manageable, the finished chest should be narrow enough to fit through a doorway.
Cut the Styrofoam cooler to size. Using a bread knife, cut the cooler in half. Determine how much of the Styrofoam you need to remove and cut equal amounts off either half. It helps to have a long straight edge and a marker to keep your lines straight.
Measure your mermaid's hips. Cut out a section of the cooler large enough for her to fit in. Be sure to leave enough room for her to walk but keep it fairly snug at the waist as this will help to hold up the finished costume.
Glue the cooler back together with epoxy adhesive. Use masking tape to hold it together while the epoxy sets.
Add a lock and rim with cardboard and masking tape. Build a shelf for the loot to sit in and secure it with tape. Add drink holders by taping plastic beer cups to the chest.
Cover the entire chest with papier mache. We used newspaper strips dipped in white glue diluted with warm water.
Spray paint the edge and inside of the chest. We used two different colours of gold spray paint: "hammered metal" for the rim and "gold leaf" for the inside.
Paint the rest of the chest with craft paint. We first painted it white and then brown before adding a faux bois effect with acrylic paints and details with markers.
Add some bling! Using a hot glue gun, glue down some mari gras beads and anything else you can find that sparkles. We also added some sea shells and glass beads.
Make belt loops. We used duct tape to connect the chest to the costume wearer's belt and hold it up.
Add a skirt. Using the lining from the mermaid tail dress, we added a piece of fabric to the underside of the chest's shelf. This can be tucked into the costume wearer's pants to keep loose treasure from falling out of the chest.
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We folded over some duct tape so it was sticky sides together and then used more duct tape to secure it to the chest.
One of the problems with using duct tape is that it stretches out, so we had to replace the loops a couple of times.
Using a stiffer material might be a good idea, but the duct tape was what we had on hand and easy to fix.