Craft: Dress Up Bird Wings

When I first saw Elizabeth Mitchell's youtube video of her children's song,"Little Bird, Little Bird", I knew I had to make a replica of the wings the children are wearing. Add to my never-ending pile of 'to make' and I didn't think much about it. I usually need a deadline to start a 'just for fun' project. Fast forward a few weeks and a friend of mine asked me to make a Dove costume for our church's Christmas 'festival of cuteness' (pagent) and I knew just what to make...of course I had to make a 'rough draft' first for my own kiddos!

I really, really liked making these. I had yardage of black, gray, and white felt (black birds for my kids, white for the Dove!) from my mother in law laying around and I always have tons of colors of regular felt sheets. I did a quick design I was happy with, sewed them on and sewed them up! It was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be. I didn't follow a pattern for any of this, just cut out what I liked and put it together how I thought it might fit. I'm better freestyle, anyway.

All in all this project only took me two hours from start to finish...my type of project!
*First I cut 4 flat wing shapes and then 10 'blue feathers' for the bottom. I cut out 2 white feathers, and 2 light blue feathers, and the 10 pieces of felt to go inside the dark blue feathers (just made the pieces up as I went along).
I cut out 4 gray 'wavy' lines and 2 smaller, light blue 'wavy lines' and 2 dark blue half-circles (to go under the feathers closest to Lukka's head).
*sew all the small pieces together seperately like the feather middles (light blue) to the actual dark blue feathers, the wavy lines to the right side of the black wings, and the 'feather overlaps' (by his head) together as one piece, then onto the black wing.
*Sew up feathers on the outside. I did not turn these inside out, they look just fine, too!
*Leave an opening at the top of the wings unsewn so the child's arms can slip through.
NOTE: I think I may add handles of some sort to be on the inside when I make the second pair since they slip off easy if they have their hands by their sides too long!

Lukka was a bit weirded out by them, I think, but Anikka loved wearing them, especially when I showed her how to flap her wings and sing the bird song. Really, if you haven't heard Elizabeth Mitchell's wonderful children's folk songs, you're missing out! They are very peaceful to listen to and easy to memorize.