Geeky DIY: Fairy Wings

I went to the Burley Fairy Festival earlier this month and decided that dressing up was a must. It was pretty easy to put a last minute fairy costume together from my cosplay box; the only thing I was missing was wings.

I decided to make my own seen as I had limited time. Here’s a step by step guide, just in case you want to have a go yourself.

You will need four wire coat hangers and tights – the two main components of the wings. You’ll also need wire cutters, scissors, and tape, along with things to decorate your wings. I used acrylic paint, glitter glue, and even more glitter.

Start by shaping the coat hangers with the wire cutters. This was the hardest part because the wire was so strong. I straightened out the hooks first, cut them to size, then pulled the bottom of the hangers down to make an oval/diamond.

Once you have this basic wing shape, you can start smoothing out the edges, and adding detail. I taped the top two wings together and the bottom two together, then shaped them simultaneously so that they were symmetrical.

When you’re happy with the shape, stretch your tights over the wire, but be careful not to ladder them. I used nude tights, but would have used coloured tights if I had thought about it. I ended up making an extra wing out of garden wire for each side, to add a little depth. It was easy to mould, but very flimsy and delicate.

You can now start decorating. If you have used coloured tights, you could just add detail to the wings, but if you’ve used nude, then you may want to consider painting them. Just remember, the thinner the tights, the harder they are to paint, and even with a few layers of acrylic, my wings were still a little see through. Glitter helped this though – lots and lots of glitter.

When they’re dry, attach the top two wings together with the tape then do the same for the bottom two. Make sure each set are sturdy – you may need a lot more tape than you think. Join the sets together in the middle and wrap with ribbon.

Measure some extra ribbon to make straps that will attach the wings to your back. You may also want to add something to the centre of the wings. I ended up clipping on a daisy.

I loved how my wings turned out. They survived the whole festival, even when it got a bit windy, and everybody loved them. The best bit is that I can reuse the frame for next year’s festival, I’ll just change the tights.

Geeky DIY: Portal Earrings

Ever since February, when I managed to get my hands on a copy of Portal 2 for cheap in an Xbox live sale, I’ve had a slight obsession with the game. As soon as I started playing I knew I would be spending a huge amount of pain staking hours trying to complete the damn thing – it’s so addictive. And when I eventually got to GLaDOS’s finale song, ‘Want you gone’, it still wasn’t over because they had a co-op section I needed to get through.

Having spent so much time playing as the games protagonist Chell, I decided I wanted to be her, and started to plan my next Cosplay costume around her uniform. My brain was in Portal mode. Then I managed to lose one of my earrings (well tunnels, I have 10mm holes in my ears because I stretched them at a festival) and had to order a new pack.

As soon as I got the boring black circles through in the post, I couldn’t think of anything but how awesome they would look as the orange and blue portals you create in the game. So I grabbed some of my acrylic paints and a toothpick, then started to draw. It wasn’t exactly difficult to do, it was just fiddly. Here’s the process:

Obviously the base of this little project is the earrings themselves. Tunnels are perfect because you can see through them to the other side, like the portals in the game. I got a pack of the rubbery ones because I always find that they stay in my ears better. Amazon sell them for really cheap.

Next is paint. I happened to have some acrylics laying around, so I just used them. The portal colours are orange and blue.. You can’t really use a substitute. The blue I used was a bit darker than I would have liked, it’s more of a light blue in the game, but that was all I had, and I wasn’t patient enough to wait another week for some more paints to arrive.

I used a toothpick to apply the paint to the ear tunnels. I attempted with a brush first, but it was too large and made a mess, the pick did a much better, and much more even job. Unless you have the steadiest hand in the world, you’re not going to be able to make a perfect circle, but I doubt that many people will be inspecting your ears up close. I had to apply around three coats of paint.

Let them dry, then pop them in. I was super chuffed with them when I’d finished. Good luck if you’re going to have a go yourself, not that you’ll need it. Oh, and remember.. the cake is a lie!!

Doctor Who’s Toolbox

The doctor has just regenerated into his 12th different reincarnation, so that’s 12 different faces, 12 different sets of clothes, and 12 different sonic screwdrivers. What does he do with all of his old tools though? They’re too powerful to leave laying around, he needs to keep them safe. He needs a toolbox!

RPF user, 00failure, had the same predicament. He was tired of all of his sonics rolling around in draws, getting lost and damaged, so decided to create a nice display case to keep them all in. This was the outcome; an MDF, black walnut veneered box, with a few fixtures added, and some Gallifreyan symbols, laser cut into the wood. The screwdrivers are held in place with flight case foam, and the box itself is covered in metal powder to give it a lovely polished look. It looks beautiful. It’s a shame it’s only a one off, because I’m sure a lot of fans would love to get their hands on one of these.

Tardis Corset

It was my friend Lucy’s birthday yesterday, and her birthday tradition is to attend a show called the Circus of Horrors at our local theatre every year. This year, we all dressed up in corsets – which, if you’ve ever seen the show, is very appropriate. Lucy, being a massive Whovian, decided to try her hand at some DIY and created her own corset designed on the Tardis, from the television show Doctor Who.

She bought a plain blue corset online, then added all the separate parts onto it, gradually making it look more and more like the Tardis in clothing form. The window pains and Police Telephone sign, are pieces of fabric that have been stitched on. The Bad Wolf lettering, and Silence counter, on the back of the corset, are drawn on with glow in the dark paint pen. It looks amazing. I’m kind if jealous I didn’t think of something like this first.

Geeky DIY: Make Your Own Space Hopper

I hope you didn’t get your hopes up too much!! This post will definitely not be teaching you how to sew together a working plastic space hopper – Quite frankly, that is just impossible in my mind. But I have found a pretty awesome paper craft version, so you guys can get stuck into some arts and crafts if you like to procrastinate.

You see, I love to multitask ..I’m not very good at it most of the time, but figure if I’m doing more than one thing at once, then I’m cheating time. So last night while I was having a bit of a Kurt Russell marathon – Big Trouble in Little China, Escape from LA.. I noticed a tweet from Hawkins Bazaar. It was called ‘make your own Space Hopper’. I love Space Hoppers, and I love crafts, so I just had to give it a go. I also like trying my hand at origami, so I figure it’s got to be similar to that.

All you need is scissors and glue (though make sure the glue is strong! I originally used pritt stick and ended up having to go over it all again), and obviously the Space Hopper Blueprints. I’ve added an example below, but it’s best to print off from their website as they have an A4 PDF version. Once you’ve got your resources, it’s pretty self explanatory – cut around the edges, fold the required lines, glue the flaps.

You then have yourself a pretty cute, miniture space hopper that you can add to your shelf. After Boba Fett had a ride, I decided Howard the hopper would settle in nicely next to my Einstein bobble head.