Butterfly Fairies

I had wanted to make little butterfly fairy costumes for the Avery twins so they could go out and about with the Grandma Phairby. So, last month I started on the wings, forming them out of wire, and then gluing on white cotton with Gemtack glue.

I didn't feel like painting all the fine details of monarch butterfly wings, so I researched other 'orange butterflies' so the kids would still be the same colour as their Grandma. I settled on the Tawny Emperor Butterfly.

Then I started painting the wings....

It took forever since both sides of the wings needed to be painted, which meant sixteen sides altogether. Then they were sealed with a few coats of matte varnish...

I started on tiny fairy outfits based on the ones I had made years ago for the OOAK polymer clay fairies, but they just weren't working out, so I gave up for a few weeks and went on to some other things. Then a month later I decided to try finish the two tiny fairy outfits I'd started, as I really hate having unfinished projects laying around. Especially after having put all that time into the wings. So I tried the outfits I'd made onto the dolls again and determined that what had tripped me up was trying to make fairy outfits with no sleeves, and that they would be worn with bare legs. I realized the two dolls didn't look very good with bare limbs. They had way too many tiny joints (the arms have five separate pieces alone) and their arms are always twisting all over the place. The dolls needed long sleeves and tights. So I made both dolls black stockings, and stitched tiny orange tubes for sleeves, which I hand-stitched into the existing armholes.

I thought the pigtails of Emily's wig would obscure too much of the wings, so tried on a commercial wig that I'd originally purchased for her years ago. I trimmed all the long curls at the sides and back.

Then I stitched the two long braids into little buns instead...

Then the twins were ready to go exploring with their Grandma...