craftgrrl | Ethel The Merm...Nevermind (Reply)

Here's my new mascot for shows, fests, and fairs:

Her hair is made of an adult-sized hula skirt, plus white and purple hair stolen from the rims of Halloween witch hats, plus "hair" and braids made out of tangled bits of Homespun and Fun Fur yarns, feathers, etc.

Why a mermaid? Well, I needed something eye-catching to draw people to the booth. And my older daughter Lorelei also sells her worry dolls and earrings and hair jewelry and such at the booth, so I was looking for something to set her stuff apart "officially" and let it be more symbolically her own thing. So, we were thinking of names that play on the Lorelei theme, and "Siren Arts" seemed appropriate for her budding biz. Which led to thinking about mermaid mascots. And there we went.

The first paper prototype, about 6 inches long.

My dad-in-law drew out the form on heavy cardboard and cut it out. Then I wadded up paper (endrolls of unused newsprint) and "filled her out" appropriately, using masking tape to hold her curves in place as I went.

She's paper-mache'd, dried for a week, base-painted with a rough slathering of peach and green acrylics, and the beginnings of her head of hair have been glued into place.

We started gluing random objects, starting at the base of the tail. My mom-in-law was more organized and neat about it than I, preferring to go in neat, even rows down the tail. Since this was meant to look as wild and chaotic as possible, she and I kept trading places as we went. That way, her hand of even-ness and my hand of chaotic-ness kept each other in balance. :) Everything is on this tail, folks. We have beads, pieces of broken costume jewelry, bits of broken glass, shells, aluminum pop-tops and bits of shredded produce netting and marbles and pinecones and buttons and coins....everything. I even found some old fishhooks with fishing line attached, which seemed like a perfect thing to stick into a mermaid's tail.

Here she is, finished except for the false eyelashes, lounging around on my mom-in-law's sofa. I can't wait for her debut next weekend at the Arts Fest in town. :)

I'm really happy with the results! She's almost exactly what I envisioned in my mind.