My daughter has started school and is loving learning about animals. Her favorite is the jellyfish so I thought why not let me try to make Glowing Jellyfish costumes for her and her cousins.
Things needed:
Sombrero or hat
Tack board
bubble tape
shredded Mylar (gift bag filler – iridescent)
battery powered LED lights (white or multi)
mesh laundry bag (color of choice)
ribbon (color of choice)
long loofah
glow sticks (color of choice)
hot glue sticks
1. Hot-glue sombrero to tack board
2. Cut out head to fit on child’s head
3. Hot-glue bubble wrap around edges with enough to fold over top.
4. Insert and feed the lights through the inside of hat so that lights are on top of hat on outside and battery pack is inside hat.
5. Tape down the lights all around the hat.
6. Fill up the top of the hat with shredded mylar to make the dome top of the jellyfish.
7. Fold the bubble wrap over and hot glue to complete dome.
8. Put mesh laundry bag over the dome.
9. Decorate the loofahs and hot-glue ribbon to the inside of loofah.
10. Hot-glue loofah to the outside of the mesh bag and edge of dome.
11. Poke holes underneath for connectors of glow sticks.
12. Put hot glue in the holes and insert the connectors only.
13. Before you go out to trick-or-treat or party, crack the glow sticks to start the light.
14. Put hot glue inside the connectors and insert the glow sticks.
15. Place the costume on child’s head while rest of his body is inside a mesh bag.
16. Cut holes for arms and tighten string around child’s chest.
17. Ensure child is dressed in black and get ready to turn everyone’s head as they admire the costume.
The kids were the talk of the neighborhood and were stopped all night long to have their pictures taken. Next year will be hard to top this.
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Coolest Homemade Glowing Jellyfish Costume Ideas 
Scuba Diver Trapped by a Jellyfish Costume 
Bio-Luminescent Jellyfish Costume 
Cool DIY Glowing Jellyfish Costumes 
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Cool Homemade Bio-Luminescent Jellyfish Costume
This is amazing. I love it and have never seen anything like it.
Nice work.
Help ! I want to make this costume ! It’s awesome. But I am kind of stuck on a few steps. I am not quite sure what the loofah is for? I can’t see it in the picture? Do you mean the regular hard loofahs or the soft mesh body wash puffs? Why do you have to use a mesh laundry bag? Did you just glue the ribbons to the bottom of the covered dome and then hook glow sticks to that? I am sorry I tried to follow the instructions but I was a bit confused as what the connectors are? Are you talking about the glow stick necklaces with the connectors to make it a necklace?
Please can you provide me more info on this costume construction, maybe some more pictures in detail as I am also a bit lost in areas.
Cheers,
Karen
Yes, I too was a bit confused as to the loofa and mesh bag. I believe that the glowsticks are added with connectors and are hanging. Please let us know where we can get further instructions…. THANKS!!
Please help and explain steps
It looks like she painted the loofahs green, yellow or blue and cut them in half to place around the bottom edge of the dome. Before she glued them to the costume she attached the colored ribbons. I am not sure why you would need the mesh laundry bag over the clothes if they are wearing black. I revised step 9 below
9. Decorate the loofahs by painting them the color that you want, cut the loofah into sections and hot-glue ribbon to the inside of loofah.
help is there any way to get a day time picture or some kind of diagram. such a cool costume. it is Oct 14 now so if we could get a response soon would be a lot of help. please and thank you jackie
We’re currently making these for ourselves, and after reading these instructions several times and visualizing how she put it all together I think it’s going to work. I’m not using the loofahs, they’re too expensive and I can’t find long enough ones to use. So, I’m going to the hardware store today and buying some pipe insulator to use instead. I think the mesh laundry bag is to help it look more like a jellyfish than anything, not sure if we’ll do this I’m going to wait and see how it looks first. Instead of shredded mylar (can’t find any) I’m using bunched up saran wrap, and I made all of my lights one color-green. Can’t wait for Halloween!!
After reading the post over and over again…I think that the loafs were used as a place to insert the connectors for the glow sticks too..I too am thinking of skipping this and use the ribbon instead. I plan to hot glue the connectors on the ribbon. Does any one know where to get tack board?? Anyone use something else that has worked instead of the tack board?? Is it the same thing as foam board?
I found 90% of the materials needed for this costume at the Dollar Store. They even have glow sticks! The only two things I had to go somewhere else to buy was the bubble wrap and LED lights. I couldn’t find any LED lights w/ strings to pull through the head of sombrero so I got the round push LED lights and cut holes in the head of the hat to poke my finger through to push the lights on. I constructed the head of the costume (steps 1 -8) last night and it didn’t take me long at all. It was very easy. I got the loofah and found a green boa at the $ store so I’m going to pull that through the middle of the loofah and glue it on tonight. So far it looks awesome and can’t wait for tomorrow night!!
how in the word do you make it a dome?! which part is the dome? SO CONFUSED BUT WOULD LOVE TO MAKE THIS!
I never knew our costumes made this site(I am the sister to the girl who posted this, and mother of 2 of the jellyfish) the loofah’s are the ones you find in the dollar store (the long ones on a rope) you take them apart and use them to help in the body of the jellyfish, the dome part. Bubble wrap can be purchased anywhere packing supplies are sold.. try even your local walmart. the LED lights we purchased on line. Yes the glow sticks were attached to the foam board with the connector piece glued into the foam board, breaking the glowsticks just before we were ready to go out to ensure they would stay lit. the mesh laundry bag helps form the dome as they also help in defining the color of the jellyfish.
I made a version of this for my two boys and the WON the Legoland costume contest last night!! Thanks so much for the inspiration!!
Do you know if the LED lights can be purchased at Home depot or Lowes ?
I don’t know about lowes or home depot but I just got mine last week at Walmart (who already has their Christmas stuff out!)
I’m making a variation of this costume and bought the lights from Amazon, search “Rtgs LED” and they’ll pull right up. They were like $6 per 7′ strand (take 3 AA batteries each) and come in many colors. They are micro LEDs on a flexible wire, super cool. My original plan was to invert a large plastic party bowl and attach it to a bike helmet but it seems a bit heavy and cumbersome for a 5 yr old so we found this costume via a Google search. Good luck everyone!
I too found most of the list at the Dollar Store. I replaced the loofahs with sparkly sheer fabric that matched the color of the glow sticks. The sombreros were at Party City. Can’t wait to wear it next Friday.