craftgrrl | a Mermaid named Pearl...

For my daughter's 2nd birthday, I'd sewn her a mermaid.
Over the past year (she just turned 3 in April), I've been slowly repairing things about her that I really didn't like.

While my daughter loved her before and played with her all the time, when she found her the other morning with her makeover, she freaked out. In a good way. I'm glad I was able to fix her up and now that I have, she's finally good enough to post online for you all to see. She's not perfect, but she'll have to do.

Preview shot

The finished product

Here are things I changed:
She was too long so I shortened her torso,
her arms were strange looking, so I gave her new ones,
her hair kept flopping around and not staying attached...

finally, I got fed up. This past week, I stole her back for the night and completely removed her hair, put a hole at the top of the head and inserted a stake into her entire length so she'd stand up right, I sewed the hair on in a much better manner, gave her a shirt (because she's supposed to be young-ish anyway, so she didn't need a bikini) because the one I had painted on globbed and when I tried to thin it out, water that was at the base of the brush dripped down and made the paint run (horribly)...

I also gave her a "pearl" necklace and earrings to match.

Detail shots:

Head/Face/Hair...
I think her eyes are my favorite part...

Torso + "Pearl" belt. This portion is leftover from when I'd reduced the torso... I loved the belt part so much that I cut it out and refastened it (instead of painting another. I liked the extra dimension of the second layer of fabric).

Tail. Nothing spectacular, nothing has been changed...

Action/Love shot:

for size and adorability.

All of this started up with my obsession with mermaids and the fact that I'd made one for myself that my kiddo tried to claim as her own. See her here.