The faery wings for my daughter are nearly complete. They are made of cardboard (because we have plenty of boxes and it seems such a waste not to reuse them in other ways), iridenscent tissue paper, floral tape, ribbon, and hot glue. I may add snaps to the ribbons; originally I was going to use white elastic, but couldn't fine it. I also may add flowers to hide the snaps. One thing I definitely need to do is dust them with baby powder or cornstarch to remove some (or hopefully all) of the outer stickiness on the outside parts of the floral tape.
The first idea was to cut out the cardboard pieces to be one layer, then cut out card stock paper to be another layer, and to sandwich the iridescent tissue paper in between. Sadly... this idea did not work. The floral tape did not stick to the card stock, and it was too flimsy to really force the tape to work. I also tried duct tape (which is the only other thing I felt was dispensible enough to use in case of failure), but that didn't work too well either. I thought about coloring the card stock and then using it as planned, but decided that it would not be strong enough and the edges would be too "clean cut". Instead, I figured I woud just be rid of the third layer. The problem was, I wasn't sure how the tissue paper would look without the extra layer to hide the bulk of it. I also wasn't sure how well it would adhere to the wing frames. I wasn't disappointed. I was fairly careful not to touch the hot tip to the paper and to also work in bits.
I also needed to figure out the connector piece, but that was simple enough. I took some scrap cardboard from the Clone Trooper armor my husband is making, cut it in with a slight bit of stylization, and covered it with floral tape. It actually took a few attempts to get the tape on the way I wanted, but I was very happy with it when I was finished.
The last thing I needed to do for these wings was to figure out how I wanted them to be worn. I already thought I'd simply use white cloth covered elastic like what people tend to use for sleeves and such, but I couldn't find the ones I just bought. I really did not want to use black on this since her outfit would likely be white or a pale color. I decided to use some pale transparent pink ribbon I actually bought to possibly use on her
Spring/Summer dress (but didn't). I hot glued them in place and they actually look really nice. They definitey work well with the color scheme.
The last few things I might do is add snaps to the ribbon and cover them with fake flowers or leaves. I'm not really sure I will do that. All in all, however, these wings are done and I will try them on Sweetling tomorrow.
Then it's back to working on my son's outfit, which I am keeping in mind that he might choose not to wear. :-p
The wings came together very well and looked adorable. Unfortunately, the day we were going to go to the Faery Festival, the weather was supposed to be Thunderstorms. We nearly chose not to go, but at the last minute that morning, we packed up and left. Got lost for an hour and a half (two unconnected roads named the same thing? Really???), but we finally made it. We didn't get many pictures though and didn't wear much in the way of costuming. My daughter and son were still cute as could be. So much so that my older sister hijacked Sweetling. I don't blame her... Who can resist?
