Weeping Angel

I made this Weeping Angel costume from scratch for my daughter. I wanted to create something that was memorable, unique and angelic.

Hangers, 15 yards of white fabric, a needle and white thread, 3 fake white flowers, a large roll of dark gray yarn, a fitted baseball cap, one white cotton headband, one fitted shirt, 2 large white foam boards, 2 large white poster boards, 2 small/thin pool noodles, safety pins, a roll of elastic waistband, a hot glue gun, a small cotton backpack, zip ties, light and dark gray face paint, 3 cans (each) of white, light gray and dark gray spray paint, and lastly dark/light gray paint.

First I cut the bill off of a black baseball cap. I snapped the back of the hat according to my daughters head size and placed the cap on a sturdy surface. I then took my yarn and cut even strips (approximately 10-12 inches) and hot glued each individual strand halfway down the yarn, and began placing the strands beginning with the bang area along her middle part, and extending each strand down to the bottom of her neck. I glued each strand all the way to the back of her head until everything was covered. Once that was complete, I took 2 small sections of hair on both sides of the front of her face (bangs) and gently rolled the pieces of the yarn back away from her face, to create a soft wispy effect of the hair being "rolled back". I secured the hair down with the hot glue gun. I then took a hair tie and put any loose hair in a low pony tail and rolled it into a low bun. Any loose hair was hot glued down. I then took a white cotton headband and spray painted it light gray. This helped for sturdiness and also made the wig a bit tighter. From there, I took a dark flower, spray painted it dark gray and safety pinned it to her head band. The contrast of the light headband with the dark flower really made the wig pop!

This was the easiest step! I took one of my old black crossover tops and spray painted it light and dark gray. It was a bit loose on my daughter, so I safety pinned it in the front for added security. The sleeves were very long for her size, but this gave the outfit a little more of a dramatic appearance by not exposing her hands.

To be completely honest, I had no idea what I was going to do for the skirt. I bought 15 yards of white fabric (which was way too much), and cut it down to approximately 48 inches. I laid the fabric down flat and then took elastic waistband and sewed it to the waist of the skirt, making sure to leave a very good amount of the elastic band out on both ends of the skirt to securely tie around her waist. From there I took 3 wire hangers, unhooked/reshaped them into long wires and connected them all into 1 long wire hanger. I needed pliers to connect the ends to each other, and I did this by twisting the ends of the hangers to connect with each other. I took the long wire and placed it approximately 1 inch from the flat base of the inside of the skirt. I then overlapped the base of the skirt over the hanger, and sewed it shut. Once this was done, I had my daughter try the skirt on. The elastic band tied securely to her body. I needed to connect each end of the skirt (both ends of the wires) to each other to enclose the back of the skirt, and I did this by sewing each open end together. By the wires bending in a circular motion at the base, it created a "lifting" effect to the skirt that made the costume appear to be floating.

The wings were a huge challenge, but gosh darn it I pulled it off! I bought 2 giant foam boards and cut them out in the shape of large ovals, but I made sure to cut a small section of the inner part of the wings into an outer shape in order to connect the wings together. You will see this in the next step.

I took poster boards and cut them in a zig zag pattern horizontally to create the actual feathers. As you can see in the photo, I cut the wings at an angle and bent them inward to make them stand out. I repeated this 2 more times and overlapped them on top of each other. Once both sides were done, I hot glued them to the foam board. After that, I took the pool noodles and cut them done the center, then wedged the foamboard and poster board in between the noodles. For extra security, I hot glued along the edges of the board and pool noodle and painted them dark gray. To complete the look, I painted the entire wings dark gray, then painted white along the inner edges of the foam board. Once those areas dried, I painted long white lines to elongate the wings to make them appear larger and also painted the tips of the wings to make them stand out. Once those areas dried, I painted a light coat of the white to all areas of the wings. The dark gray paint underneath the white paint gave the wings a nice shadow!

I connected the wings together by zip tying them together. This worked perfectly because of the sturdiness of the foam board.

The goal of this step was to hide the backpack straps underneath her shirt. I had my daughter put on the costume shirt and then had her put on a small cloth backpack. I made sure to tighten the straps of the backpack just enough to make sure it wasn't loose. From there, I cut a small hole into both shoulders of her shirt and a hole under the back of her armpits, then fed the backpack strap through. So in short, the backpack is exposed on to her back, but the straps are hidden inside of her shirt.

With this step, I cut off and removed the front and sides of the backpack and only left the back portion of the backpack and connecting straps. Next, I cut 4 horizontal lines into the center of the backpack from the top of the backpack down to the bottom. I wrapped zip ties around each of the cuts of the backpack and connected them to the zip ties on the wings. So the backpack zip ties tied to the wing zip ties. The straps made it very easy to carry the wings on her back!

I cut a large sliver of fabric from the scraps of her skirt and spray painted it light gray, then added 2 more fake flowers to the sash. I spray painted the flowers dark gray to give it a nice contrast against the light gray sash.

I simply bought some light and dark gray face paint and lightly coated her face and neck with dark gray paint and then took the light paint and dabbed it onto various places of her face for a nice highlight, mainly around her eyes! My goal was to give her the appearance of a dirty stone!