Sea-Witch/mermaid costume

I was chosen to do face-painting for the kids for our store's Fall Harvest (Halloween) Festival last Saturday. I decided to make a Sea-Witch/mermaid costume--on the morning of the event. >~<' So I started by making the tail, using an old black velvet skirt. I held the top elastic band around my knee, and cut where it fit. I glued the shortened band together with GOOP, and clipped it with a clothespin to hold it in place. I cut the skirt down from the band into a roughly triangular shape, making sure the bottom of the piece was above my toes. I then glued a wide black lace ribbon along the bottom-inside of the velvet with GOOP. I made the crown out of clear, flexible plastic with some of the same lace ribbon glued on with Elmer's Adhesive Spray. First, while wearing housecleaning rubber gloves, I sprayed the plastic with the adhesive. Then, I pressed the lace to the plastic , and sprayed adhesive over all of the lace. After it dried, I measured silver-colored belt material around my head, cut it to fit with a 1/2-inch overlap, and glued it to the bottom edge of the plastic (yes, GOOP again--BEST-ADHESIVE-EVER!!) After it dried, I brought the ends of the belt together, gluing and overlapping the 1/2 inch. I used a stapler to secure the plastic to the belt material, and to secure the ends together. I cut the plastic to a rough crown shape, and glued rhinestones on the front. I also stapled green lace to hang down from the crown, to suggest seaweed. This costume took roughly 3 hours to assemble, and though I was happy with the results, I think I looked more like a MANATEE-maid...