Fantasy Film Wings by Emm for Charity Wings

Wings made from Fantasy Film Sheets, Fantasy Film and Fantasy Fiber, sounds like a marvelous fantasy to me! I made these wings for Elena of Charity Wings to wear at CHA this past week and where ever she wants to really! They are a good bunch at Charity Wings, supporting many worthy causes; you just have to check them out!

I have made so many Fantasy Film Wings, I couldn’t possibly tell you how many. However most all of them vary around 12” long. I have now made 5 of the adult wearable size and my best and first advice to all who want to make a pair, try a small set first to get your feet wet.

That said lets get started on these babies! First of all, I always work in pairs. Obviously wings have a left and right side and it is so much easier to keep them similar by working on both sides at the same time. Start with a wire frame. This frame here is from a larger set of angel wings I made in October 2012. This is 16-gauge hardware wire, not the easiest to work with but strong enough to hold your form. The key is to keep your wire flat as possible. I do this by pulling it straight out from the coil and allowing it to keep much of it’s original shape. The most important thing to remember when making your wire frame is to make one end of your wires a foot or more longer beyond the film edge. This is your connecting wire, a must have!

Now you can lay your Aurora Fantasy Film Sheet over one set of wires. It is 20 inches wide by 5 feet long and the packages come with two sheets rolled together which make it easy to use. Unroll over one set of wires and cut the two pieces at the same time. Do this one more time for a total of 4 pieces (2 for each wing). Lay two pieces down separately and place wire frames on top (like shown above).

Now you’ll need to glue the wire down in a few spots, you don’t have to glue the whole frame; you are just trying to keep your wire in place while ironing. I squeeze some Designer Dries Clear onto my finger and spread it on the wires where they touch the film. Let dry 15 min. or so till clear.

Cover your frame with the remaining two sheets of Aurora. You are ready to iron the two pieces together, sandwiching the frame into place. #1 RULE… you have to place parchment paper on top otherwise the film will melt away and stick to your iron. (You may want parchment paper under bottom piece of film too, depending on your ironing surface). Iron all areas of film, being careful to get close to frame wires.

Cut excess film off of areas you plan to burn away and save pieces. These wings will be covered with “feathers” we will make soon, so don’t worry about making this base part perfect. Light your candle and make sure the flame/wick is above wax line so you can pass your film through it. Got for it! Run edges of wings through flame until you are satisfied with look of edge. (See photo further down for burning feather edges). Melt other wing edges too and blow out candle flame.

For Elena’s wings I made another smaller set of base wings that bend out from the other ones, make as many as you want. Then wire them all together, twisting your connecting wires together to make a tight bridge, about 4 inches long and cover it with duct tape.

Now we are going to make feathers! I made approximately 100 sets for Elena’s wings, but you can determine how many you want based on size and coverage. For one 8-9” set cut two 18”strips of 4” wide Fantasy Film. This photo above shows two sets using Krista’s Eyes and Watermelon, my favorite combination by far. Just like mixing paints you can mix Fantasy Film to create different colors, I almost always mix colors, its lots of fun!

Cover with parchment paper and iron till bonded, just a few seconds. Then bend in half and crease like the bottom one shown.

Hold folded end in one hand and cut triangles off, making a “tie” shape like above.

These are what I call my “happy scraps”. They make me happy! “Why” you may ask, well, it’s because I can reuse these scraps for collage backgrounds, stamping and wrapping around objects (to be bonded with a heat tool). It makes me happy to reuse and these make me especially happy because they are all the same size and shape and I know they will prove to be very handy in a future project. Happy Scraps!

Light your candle; time to melt your tie! Open fold and pass one side along flame briefly, dwelling a touch longer at the ends to make a point. Turn around and melt other side.

Hold directly over candle flame until a hole forms, move feather up away from flame. Make a hole on other side too. It is possible for the film to catch on fire while burning over a flame. Just blow it out quickly, don’t scream and drop it!

Make several at a time, cut several strips of film, then iron/bend them all, cut them all, melt them all…you get it.

Here’s just one, with a little bit of Fantasy Fiber hiding the fold. This is the Krista's Eyes and Watermelon combination, gorgeous isn't it!

To attach them to wings smear a little E6000 glue on base just above fold and place on wing. Smear a little more E6000 on top base and cover with a small amount of Fantasy Fiber and push it into glue. Weight glued part down for at least half an hour. E6000 is perfect for the Fiber when it is not bonded together, other glues won’t hang on to it in its fluffy state.

Elena's wings have feathers on both sides of the base wings; I used 24 ten-foot rolls of film in 6 different colors, 2-3 packages of fiber and one package of Aurora in the sheets. I know that’s a lot! But it gives you a starting point to figure out how elaborate you want to make your wings.

The easiest way of making them wearable is with two ribbons tied to the bridge that will go around your shoulders to tie in place. Use about 3 yards each and knot them in the middle at the bridge. You will no doubt need to do some creative maneuvering to get your wings to sit straight, you may even need to add a support wire somewhere, I can’t tell you where, you will have to figure that out yourself!

Here are my larger angel wings I spoke of at the beginning of this post. They have a wing span of approx. 60” and about 52” long. They took two packages of Fantasy Film Sheets, about forty 4” rolls of Film and five 7-gram packages of Fiber. And about 30 hours to make. They have been at the CHA show with Barbara, I miss them.

I thank Elena for wearing my smaller set and I’m happy they have a wonderful new home with her and Charity Wings where they will hopefully inspire others to give.

Enjoy - emm







Materials:
Fantasy Film Sheets, Aurora
Fantasy Film (various colors)
Fantasy Fiber, Snowflake
Scissors
16-gauge wire
Wire cutters, pliers
Baker’s parchment paper
Iron set to medium high
Designer Dries Clear Adhesive
Candle and matches
Duct Tape
E6000
Ribbon