The Fashion Show Project: Beautiful Butterfly Wings

Just as I'm stretching my abilities in constructing a runway-ready outfit for Sydney, Syd, herself is learning quite a lot in this homeschooling project of ours. Consumer science, I suppose--remaking an outfit is much less expensive than buying one, although much more work, and one still must conform to a budget.

Math--the yardage of the fabric is what it is, and can go only so far and no farther.

Home ec--sewing without a pattern still requires careful measurements, frequent fittings, and precision.

Careers--modeling a garment can be tedious, and a photo shoot intended to display certain views of the garment consists of certain poses, which are repeated until the photographer is pleased with the result.

Art--with a lot of work and a LOT of creativity (and a lot of hot glue), you can create an outfit that is very similar to, though not identical to, your original vision.

Syd's vision of her outfit includes not just the garment, but butterfly wings and a fairy princess crown. For the butterfly wings, I used wire hangers, a stretchy cotton sweater, a stretchy cashmere sweater, duct tape, four broken sewing machine needles, extra fabric from the pink dress, hot glue, and ribbons to make Sydney's vision real:

 
My little fashion model has the hang of the photo shoot, don't you think?
 
 
 
 
You can check out my wire hanger butterfly wings tutorial over at Crafting a Green World; keep in mind that although the tutorial is for one pair of wings, I actually used two pairs and then attached them together at the middle with duct tape covered by dress fabric for the layered effect.