DIY Ice Phoenix Costumes

Total Time: About a month and a half

Yield: Two costumes

Supplies:

• white shirts
• silver and blue shiny fabric
• scissors
• Fabri-tac glue
• opal crystals
• mirror pieces
• fake diamonds
• blue and silver glitter glue
• half cap foam bases
• sequins
• jewels
• large blue and white feathers
• Marabou boa feathers
• black pants
• gold fabric
• needle and thread
• wire
• blue fake nails
• white and blue tutus
• mini battery operated light sets
• silver fabric
• glue gun
• large white wings
• silver branch and leaf picks
• gold gloves
• silver, blue, and white makeup
• face jewels
• bird beaks

Steps:

1. Ice Phoenix Shirts: To make the main body of these costumes, we used a plain white long sleeved t-shirt as a base. We got fabric in silver and icy blue, and cut it up into feather like shapes. We needed to cut a lot of these, about 600 per shirt. This took a long time, but was very important. We then glued the silver feathers, covering up the entire shirt, in overlapping layers, the way a birds feathers look. We then wanted to add a lot of sparkle and icy detail to the shirts. We glued round opal crystals and small pieces of mirror to every single fabric feather, alternating between the two shapes for each row. We used blue feathers for just the middle chest area on the front of the shirts, to create a bird chest. This was a different color from the rest of the bird, which is something we have seen real birds have. We glued large fake diamonds, which we thought looked like big pieces of ice, onto each of the blue fabric feathers using a glue gun. We then outlined all of the silver shapes in blue glitter glue, and the blue shapes in silver glitter glue, to differentiate them from each other and make them stand out.

 

 
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2. Ice Phoenix Headpieces: We wanted to have big impressive looking headpieces that would really show up. These were made onto a half cap foam base. They were decorated with jewels, sequins, and marabou boa feathers. Large blue and white feathers were glued standing up in many layers, to make the headpieces tall and exciting looking.

 
3. Pants with Ice Phoenix Legs and Claws: We wanted these costumes to have the illusion that we had bird legs and claws instead of human legs, and that the birds were kind of floating in the air. We got black pants, to try to make our legs disappear. We made the bird legs and claws from gold fabric, which was sewn and stuffed into the shape of long bird legs with curving talons at the ends. Wire was included inside so they could bend and look more realistic. We attached icy blue fake nails to the ends of the talons, which we cut into points. These legs were sewn onto the black pants, sticking out.

 

 
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4. Feathery Tutus: We purchased white and blue tutus, which we hoped would look like a feathery ruffle on the bird. We added a set of battery operated mini lights and wove them among the tutu layers, to make the tutu feathers light up.

 
5. Ice Phoenix Tails: We noticed drawings of the ice phoenixes we saw had long feathers sticking way out by their legs, and curving gracefully around with big plumes on the ends. We wanted to recreate this. We made large feathers by cutting out 3 foot long feather shapes from silver fabric, and gluing heavy gauge wire onto them, so that it was sandwiched between two of these shapes back to back. We then glued the shapes closed with the glue gun, and glued a large white or blue ostrich feather to the ends of each one. We made about 8 of these for each costume. We then used the glue gun to attach them to the pants, going around in a circle just below the waistband. We then bent them in a shape curving upward so that they stuck up and floated all around us when we walked.

 
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6. Ice Phoenix Wings: We also got large plain white wings to wear. We then decorated these to match the rest of the costume. We glued on large blue ostrich feathers. We then attached glittery silver branch and leaf picks, and more of the little mirrors. We wanted these wings to light up as well. We got more mini battery operated light sets, and used wire to attach them around the tops of each pair of wings.

 
7. Ice Phoenix Neck Ruffles and Gloves with Claws: We made special neckpieces to cover our necks. We sewed the silver fabric, gathering it into a ruffled collar. We then decorated it with hanging icy looking jewels and blue ostrich feathers. To cover our hands, we got gold gloves to look like the gold bird talons by our real legs. We attached more of the pointy icy blue fake nails to the ends of the fingers on the gold gloves.

 

 
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8. Ice Phoenix Makeup: Finally, we completed these costumes with a special makeup job. We painted our faces almost entirely in silver. We made feathery shapes around our eyes in shades of blue and white. We glued on large shiny icicle and snowflake jewels with spirit gum. We had shiny glittery blue designs and lips as well. The finishing touch was the beak. We got black crow beaks, which we repainted gold.