A while ago I came across pretty gold dipped feathers on Pinterest and fell in love with the idea. I thought it would make a cute DIY for the holidays, and the colors also last through winter and beyond. I decided to make a garland, and it turns out it’s been done before, but I still love how it turned out! Here’s how I made it…

First of all, my favorite thing about this project is that it’s cheap. It only requires a few supplies:

-white feathers
-gold craft paint
-paint brush and foam brush
-gold glitter
-mod podge
-string or red baker’s twine

Also, to get a straight line for that “dipped” look, I used painter’s tape (basically my BFF when it comes to crafting). Here was my setup…

The trickiest part was containing the glitter (isn’t that always the problem?). For my process, I would paint an individual feather gold, sprinkle with glitter, let it dry, shake off excess glitter, then use a foam brush to seal the glitter with a thick coat of mod podge. I first tried using a paint brush, but silly me, it cost me the brush (glitter-glue situation gone bad). I found that a foam brush was much easier to clean and remove the glitter.

Repeat these steps for both sides of the feathers, and while they’re drying, try to lift them every once and a while to make sure they’re not sticking to the paper underneath (or whatever you use as a surface area).

Lastly, I used red and white baker’s twine to string them all together. I tied a know around each feather one by one to make the garland. You might also want to put a dab of glue on there to make sure it’s secure. It’s a little tricky stringing multiple feathers to make a knot, but I was determined to use one piece of string. It worked!

For the record I’m still finding glitter everywhere, but it was worth it! I hung it on our mantle but it could also be cute on a wall or archway.

I hope you’re inspired by this simple idea! Oh, and I’d love to hear if you’ve done any DIY projects for holiday decorating as well…

xoxo

Tuesday, December 11th, 2012, 8:00 am   |   DIY Projects, Holiday, Interior Design  |  RSS feed |  Respond  |  Trackback