Rory's Strangling Raven Costume - Part 2

Hi Everyone,
FEATHERS! Not my thing! I really think as a crafter we all have a craft we jive with! I think I am somewhat versatile as I seem to always be searching for some new crafty goodness to float my boat.  Feathers?  I just don't  like 'um!  I think I'd have more fun painting cute faces on little rocks (remember pet rocks?) Feathers just seem to have a mind of their own.  I'm telling you I will be picking up feathers for months. They are everywhere. And by everywhere I mean everywhere! I know they made it upstairs from the craftspace to the kitchen, and the bedrooms too! They are floating everywhere through the house, I am pretty sure I saw them on the floor of my cubicle at work. I think I coughed one up the other day.  To me feathers are like glitter, only with wings! They are never really going to be gone. You know what I mean, I'll bet you dollars to donuts when I empty the lint catcher in the dryer that I will see some black feathers.  Next time I need to make a set of wings I am going to make it butterfly wings that are made out of a coat hanger and some pantyhose.  NO MORE FEATHERS FOR ME!! Well, with that said . . .  I finished Rory's wings.  To be honest it was not an easy task. Now I am not sure if it is because me and the feathers just did not get along or maybe it was because I just did not know what I was doing.  So you saw the picture of the blank and bland back of the wings in my first post. Well, just to take up some space here is the picture again:

A blank canvas for sure! I started off by gluing single marabou feathers to the border of the back.  I was able to buy black duck feathers from Joann's and I laid them out before gluing. Here is that pic:

I kept flipping back to the front to make sure I was placing the feathers correctly.  This really does matter because if you stack them wrong they look kind of funky!  The key was to work from the center out to the edges of the wings. First from center to the left, then from center to the right.  I added a marabou boa at the neck to hide the end of the quills.  It took lots of glue and lots of time and I think it was worth it because here is a picture of how they turned out:

 

 You can see how the marabou feathers really bumped up the wings and the fact that both the back and the front are covered make all the difference.  I can't wait for Halloween and I can't wait to post a picture of Rory in this costume. I also want to tell you that stated on the costume and on the purchased feathers they tell you the black dyed feathers are not water safe. In fact my hands were black just from working with them.  If it rains this Halloween, Rory will have black running all over her costume for sure.  It's back to papercrafting and favor making for me.  I have a lot going on in the craftspace this weekend and I can't wait to show you all my 2012 Halloween nugget holder. Have a great week end! Thanks for stopping by.

Lysa