DIY Feather Leg Pieces

 

Carnival season is upon us and I wanted to share a tutorial on feather leg pieces.  Before I start I just want to throw out a disclaimer that necessity is the mother of invention!  I made all this ish up, it could be completely wrong, but it worked for me. 

If you are an auditory person, here is a video of sober me (unenthused and unamused) giving a break down. 

If you are like me and hate the sound of people talking and prefer to receive your information visually, here you go…

To create the frame of the leg piece I purchased plastic cutting boards from the Dollar Tree (don’t judge me) I needed a material that was sturdy yet slim & flexible.  I knew I wanted diamond shapes, rather than draw it free hand I used the glass Q tip holder in my bathroom (again don’t judge me) and traced onto the cutting boards. 

 

 

I upholstered the plastic with fabric (if I only need a tiny amount of fabric I like to hit up the remnants corner of the fabric store for dirt cheap fabric) this fabric was left over from the feather collars I made.  PS:  my favorite fabric to use when creating carnival creations is sequin fabric because is so sparkly & tricks the eye. 

 

After upholstering the diamonds I added plastic pearl trim to the edges and plastic gold trim along the center to jazz it up.  The plastic trim was purchased from ebay. 

 

Next was to glue feathers to the top of the leg piece. I was using left over feathers so some of them were on a trim and others were single feathers.   I also get my feathers from ebay. Some of the feathers I found in the colors I needed, but I needed an odd shade of pink to match our costumes so I dyed some white feathers pink and tan.  Dye can be purchased from your local craft store (Michaels, JoAnns, Hobby Lobby).

Lastly I glued string to the back of the leg piece so that itc could be tied to my leg and then I glue pink foam (purchased from the craft store) to the back of the leg piece. 

 

 Ta-Da!!!  Good luck with your creations!