This week I’ve been working on two different ways of creating light up fairy wings for Halloween.

To start, I used wire frames from old wings to create new, fun wings to work with. I chose some mesh fabrics and glued them on the empty wing frames, then covered the edges with ribbon. Then I planned my light effects and began crafting them into the wings. Read on for the two methods I used.

Another way to cover fairy wings is using stretchy tights/stockings and pulling them over the wire – Threadbanger has a great tutorial for this method.

Programmable Light Up Wings

The first set I made used Aniomagic’s Schemer board, which is a sewable controller you can program through your web browser or iPhone. You attach it to special lightboards which have LEDs in them and can be programmed to blink, fade, or light up in different patterns. Read the full tutorial here.

Fiber Optic Wings

The next few sets of wings I made used a special kind of fiber optics that illuminates along the length of the cable. I liked the way it reminds me of EL wire but without the need for an inverter/driver to power it. LEDs at the ends of the cable and a battery are the only other supplies I needed to make a dramatic effect on these wings. Full tutorial here.

In addition to my two prototypes, there are some other great ways to add light/glow effects to your fairy wings: use some EL wire or sew on some LEDs like in Becky Stern’s Electronic Embroidery tutorial.