Halloween is coming! And what could be more fun than making DIY Halloween costumes for you and your kids! What would you say about a pair of heavenly beautiful angel wings? Every child is a happy little angel, isn’t it? Well, maybe not all the time but…Have a look at this easy tutorial for a homemade kid’s Halloween costume and heat up your glue gun!
1. Make the template
Enlarge the template, so that the wing, at its widest point, should be about 38 cm wide. Print out. Then, take a double layered cardboard, squeeze it along the existing fold and place the straight edge of the template against the fold. Outline the template. Place the cardboard on a cutting mat and cut through both layers along the marked line. Cut two 1 cm wide slits for the rubber bands at the marked locations. If possible, use white cardboard. If you do not have a white cardboard, you can paint this one with several layers of white emulsion paint after this step. Open the wings, and put it down so that you obtain a mountain fold (^) not a valley fold (v). Thread the needle with a rubber band and take it through the two slots of the first wing. Tie the ends together temporarily. Repeat for the other wing. When the wings are done, you can remove the temporary knots and to adjust the straps to the size of the kid. To hide the hard cardboard edge on the finished wings, glue a white feather boa along the edge of both wings.
2. Glue the feathers
Lay the wings with the knotted rubber bands up on the table. Then attach the template to the edges using paper clips. Turn over the wings. Use the template as a guide to glue the feathers like these of a real bird. Glue the goose feathers using a hot glue gun to the lower edge of the wing. Start at the top and glue the feathers overlapping, with the front side up, so that they point downward to the tip of the wing. Cover about three-fourths of the wing with goose feathers. The part of the wing that is facing away from the back of the child would look best if you use more feathers and less down to make it look like a real bird’s wing. Use the image of the finished wing as a guide for locating the feather places. Cover the top of the wing with craft feathers. Glue these pointing down and facing up, so that they overlap the goose feathers. Work until the fluffy parts of the craft feathers reach the upper edge of the wing to to feather boa at the top. Turn the wings and remove the template. This side of the wings rests against the back of the child and looks as the underside of a bird’s wing. Therefore, glue the feathers reversed for a more natural effect – with the back facing up. First glue some goose feathers so that they extend beyond the lower edge of the cardboard and skip to the feathers on the back. Cover about half of the wing with goose feathers.
3. Finishing details
Cover the rest of the wing surface with marabou feathers to achieve a soft effect – similar to the underside of a bird’s wing. Glue on the marabou feathers pointing down and the back side up so that they overlap the goose feathers. Use a glue gun and transparent 7 mm glue sticks and work until you reach the upper edge of the wing. Cover the fine stems of the marabou feathers at the top with the Marabou Boa. Repeat this process for the other wing and try to arrange the feathers as mirror-inverted as possible on the other wing. Let your child put on the wings and adjust the rubber bands.
Tip: Feathers have not only front and back side, but even different orientation depending from which side of the body of the bird they come. For the most natural look you should use mainly left feathers for the left and right feathers for the right wing. This is especially important at the wing tips. Up on the wings, however, it makes sense to mix the two feather types to create a smooth effect.
