Little Mermaid

This is my latest original design.  I created her especially for one of my best friends, Mary.  (Mary's maiden name is Fair and when she was young, kids called her "Mary Fairy."  I like to call her that, too!)  She is the mother of Kelly, who receives the marching band bears each year, and Luke, who is the owner of last year's "squirrel in aviator sunglasses" and this year's Pittsburgh Steelers football player.

One year, we were talking about the various ornament patterns and Mary said, "There should be a mermaid!"  And she thought there should be a clam, a lobster, and other assorted sea creatures.  Our families vacationed together in Holden Beach, North Carolina this summer and we were picking up shells.  I kept seeing all these little scallopy shells and had a flicker of creativity and decided I could use them as the bathing suit top for a mermaid.  I brought a bag home of various sizes.  It was hard to find two that matched in terms of size and shape.  They were all tan in color and when I put them on the ornament, she looked naked!  I decided to paint them instead.

As I've said before, I cannot draw.  Not even a little bit.  But I'm a really good copier!  I started my search for mermaid clipart on the web.  This was the first image I came to that I liked.  I thought this tail looked workable.  (Check her out -- she even has the shell bikini top!) 

That hair looked problematic to me.  I couldn't figure out the engineering of it with it dipping down behind her back.  Back to the web for some suitable mermaid hair.  I found this image and was kind of taken with the flowing hair of the mermaid on the bottom.

 

I figured if I had the tail and the hair going the same direction, the weight would be unevenly distributed and it would cause the ornament not to hang straight . . . . so I flipped the tail in the other direction.

I wanted something fancy in her hair, but couldn't quite decide.  I remembered the flower in Leiloni's hair and how cute it was, so I went back and took a look at her.  (Incidentally, I used Leiloni's torso!)  I decided I wanted a little more than just one big flower, so I did several.  I also thought it would be cute to have a starfish in her hair and because my drawing capabilities are SO nonexistent that I can't even scribble a starfish, I even found a graphic for that.

I won't hold you in suspense any longer . . . here she is!

I covered the whole tail with green sequins.  I did not use beads.  (If you've done any Bucilla kits, then you know what I'm talking about.)  I started using a green bead on each one, but I just didn't like how it looked.  I'm much happier with just the sequins.  It looks scalier.  I used three flowers in addition to the starfish.  Each flower has one tiny bead in the middle and the starfish has three.  I included the pieces for the flower and the starfish on the pattern, but I didn't include them in the drawing of the finished ornament.  When I did the pattern, I wasn't sure how I would arrange them.  You can arrange yours however you want!  I also included a pattern piece for a felt bikini top in case you don't want to use shells or don't happen to have any handy.  And yes -- that is a little tan french knot for a belly button!