The Dianasaur and I were discussing what she’d like to befor Halloween this year, and she’s decided that she’d like to be a butterfly.
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I know that some of you are already aware of the fact that I really, really don’t like butterflies, but hey, it was her idea, and I don’t want to stifle her budding creative juices.
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I can do most of it. Leotard & tights for the body, pipe cleaners for antenna. It’s the wings I’m not real sure of.
Any ideas?
Oh, and she’s also determined that she would like to be a black butterfly. She gets extra points for imagination on that, and for giving Mom such and easy color to work with.
Pers, baby, sexy mama,
Get some wire at a hobby shop or wherever, even some coat hangers. Bend them the way you want them and cover them with material or fine mesh and color it up pretty. Attach them with some thin rope.
I considered doing this once - I never actually did it, but this is the idea I had.
You need a harness and the wings. The harnesses I’ve seen are backpack style: a loop around each arm, and a strap accross the back. These seem to come off fairly easily though. I would either put a strap accross the front as well as the back, or put a belt/strap around the waist and suspender style straps over the shoulder (crossing in back)
Make the wings with an armature of heavy wire. I wouldn’t use hangers - wire is cheap and the hangers will never bend right. You can either make the full wing outline if she wants a realistic butterfly, or just the top arch and let the bottom of the wings drift (which I think would be prettier) Glue the fabric to the armature. You should be able to get some nice cheap black fabric at the local store, but take a look at the formal fabrics, there should be some really cool stuff there.
If you make the armature to where it can be taken off the harness, you can put the harness on under the leotard and get a better effect.
Unless you’re really intent on making them yourself, butterfly wings are available for cheap just about everywhere. I’ve seen them recently in the costume section of CVS, at Old Navy, etc. They cost as little as $5 or $6, so they don’t seem, to me, to be worth doing yourself. Your daughter could augment them with glitter glue and other doodads, if she wants to personalize them.
If you do make your own, wire hangers are going to be much too heavy. I’d look in the craft store for heavy floral wire or something like that.
My little girls have a pair in their dress-up box. The elastic straps that go over the shoulders do tend to slip down and off. You might want to use a bit of ribbon to tie them across the front of her chest.
Good luck!
(I’m making an Easter Bunny costume for my 6yo this year. My 9yo is going as a flying squirrel. Where do they come up with these ideas?)
What would be awesome, since she wants to be a black butterfly, would be to make her a swallowtail. The basic color is black, along with some blue and I think orange if I remember correctly. (I used to see them every year growing up because their caterpillars LOVED to munch on Dad’s parsley, and he didn’t have the heart to kill them.) I’m sure there are gobs of pictures of them on the 'Net somewhere.
Another alternative might be to use one of those cheap butterfly wing kites. I don’t know what they cost, but if you can find one it’ll already have some kind of pretty butterfly wing design.
Actually, the thinner grade of coat hanger works just fine. I made some bat wings with 'em last year. For the fabric, rather than try to glue fabric to the armature, get a cheap pair of nylons. Cut the legs off and pull them over the armature - knot them at the end by the back. You can then use paint for designs. For a really fairy-type look, use white nylons and paint swirly designs with that colored hair spray stuff, or even spray glitter. If you want something more opaque, use cheap tights instead of nylons. I was lucky with mine - I found some cheesy Halloween nylons that were black with little black sparkle designs.
Depending on how small your child is and how big you want the wings to be, you can use two for each side - top and bottom lobes of the wings.
I used light floral wire (because my daughter really is teensy) and felt. I shaped the wire, glued the felt to the wire, and trimmed the felt to the wire shape. Then I took a bunch of colored foam shapes and glued them to the felt. Voila! Wings!
But how to attach them to the girl…hmm…
Velcro.
Took strips of Velcro and glued them to the sweatshirt and the wings. Now, the wings stay on the sweatshirt, and I even put some on the sleeves, so she can actually flap the wings.
It’s really freakin’ cute, if I do say so myself. And my daughter loves it.
