Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Wings & Things

Halloween is coming. And fast. My sweet little six year old loves anything princess and detests anything not "pretty" costume-wise (i.e. witches). I am growing tired of the Disney Princess road. I was thumbing through various family-friendly magazines and websites and came across a few different ideas for fairy wings. For my girl, it was love at first sight. For me, it was yet another excuse to test my creativity. So for a quick idea for something fun, girly, and not Disney for your little princess, try these pretty little fairy wings. Materials needed:
  • 4 wire hangers
  • wire cutters
  • pliers or very strong hands
  • 4 knee high nylons
  • duct tape
  • spray paint
  • glitter, fabric paint, etc.
  • 2 yards grosgrain ribbon in coordinating color
Step 1: Using the wire cutters, cut the hook part off each hanger. Step 2: Gripping hanger like a bow (as in bow and arrow) and pull. This will give you the diamond shape you see below Step 3: Bend the neck of the hangers 1 and 2 enough that you can duct tape them easily together. Repeat with hangers 3 and 4. Step 4: Duct tape 2 hangers together. Once you have 2 sets of wings, duct tape the two sets. Step 5: Slip one knee-high nylon over each wing and tie in a knot. At this point, I chose to tie those ends to each other Step 6: Spray paint your desired color. Give it a good coat and you shouldn't have to do more than 1. (I didn't even have to spray the backside and bonus, it dried very quickly.) Step 7: Add your embellishments-glitter spray, fabric/glitter paint for details, etc. Step 8: Cut ribbon into two pieces, 1-yd each. Fold in half. Hot glue loose ends to where you've duct-taped the hangers together. Make a loop and glue the folded ended on top of the loose ends. Repeat with second strand of ribbon. These are the arm holes. Step 9. Cover the center with flowers to hide all the knots and duct tape. Voila! A simple, inexpensive set of wings for your little fairy! **UPDATE** The top wings kept flopping down by the 3rd party/event we went to. To fix, use a little hot glue to adhere a small portion of the shoulder straps to the wings. I did it maybe an inch or 2 above were the hangers all come together. We haven't had a problem since!

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