How-Tuesday: Learn How to Make a Faux Feather Wreath

TinyBazaar

Story by TinyBazaar

Published on May 12, 2009

Photo by Danielle Thompson

Feather your nest with this beautiful and fiendishly clever project, courtesy of Danielle Thompson, a.k.a. TinyBazaar. Check out her blog, Kitschy Digitals, for more craftiness!

I love the feather trend of late, especially in fashion. One thing that can be difficult with feathers is their fragility; they often fall apart with even the smallest amount of wear. I had this in mind when I created this project. You don’t have to worry about them disintegrating!

I wanted to apply this feather trend to a home decor project: create a wreath out of these printed paper feathers. The result is a modern take on the traditional wreath. (And so pretty to display for springtime!)

For this project you will need:
- The violet and/or magenta feather PDF (If you’re interested in more feather colors, check out the digital kit or print-outs in her Etsy shop!)
- Some good, sharp scissors
- Metal wreath form (as pictured – mine is around 12″ in diameter)
- Your choice of paper to print the feathers on (I used regular matte white photo paper, but you could use cardstock, textured cardstock, or any paper in any color you’d like.)
- A strong glue that will hold paper to metal (I used E-6000 because I wanted to make sure the paper would adhere to the metal really well. It’s super strong but very toxic, so if you use this glue, use it in a very well ventilated area!)

Step One: I used several sheets of feathers for this wreath, as it will take quite a few. To save paper and ink, just print them as you need them. These files are PDF files, so you should be able to open these on any computer without the need of photo-editing software. You will need Acrobat Version 6 or later. You can download it for free at http://www.adobe.com/products/reader/.

Step Two: Cut out your feathers. One tip I learned a long time ago when I was doing a lot of decoupage: Instead of letting your cutting hand take the lead, let your non-cutting hand move the paper/shape. In my experience, it’s much easier to cut out detailed shapes this way! For example, if you’re right handed, you hold your scissors in your right hand, and the paper in your left hand. Keep your right hand (and scissors) still, and let your left hand move the paper back and forth. Your left hand will guide the cutting instead of the scissors.

Step Three: Once you have quite a few feathers cut out, you can start gluing them to your wreath form. This metal form has two “tiers.” You’ll need to start on the bottom tier. These feathers will rest underneath the feathers on the top tier. Start by adding a drop of glue to the top metal rim as seen here:

Then add a drop of glue to the bottom rim:

Then attach your first feather:

Keep attaching the feathers all the way around until you finish the bottom tier.


Now attach feathers to the entire top tier.

You’re finished! Now you can embellish it if you’d like, or keep it as is. I added some green pompoms to my wreath.

Many thanks to Danielle Thompson for sharing her project and beautiful photos with us. Don’t forget to stop by the Kitschy Digitals blog, and while you’re at it, check out her personal blog as well.

More crafty project downloads can be found in our How-Tuesday series on the Etsy blog! And did you know that you can buy Supplies on Etsy?

Discuss: 67 comments

Related Items

67 comments

Sign in to add your own