Angel Wings Tutorial – How to Make Beautiful Angel Wings Free!

Make these beautiful angel wings with things you already have around the house!

I just love angel wings, and they are all the rage in decorating right now. The only problem is, when you actually find some wings that you like (from Pier 1 for example), they cost WAY MORE than you want to pay!

I came up with this idea as we were preparing to decorate the stage for our special Christmas services. We needs some very big angel wings, and I wanted to find a way to do it using things we already had.

They turned out really nice, so I wanted to share the tutorial with you, so that you could enjoy some angel wings in your home this season… while not spending any more money on decorations 🙂

Step #1: Decide How Big You Want Your Wings

Because we are using our wings as stage props, I wanted them to be a nice size, so that everyone could see them. We decided to make ours 7ft X 4ft, but you can make them any size that makes you happy! You need to have some sort of backing to build your wings on. We had a piece of painting drop cloth laying around, so we used that. What do you have that you’re not using? A piece of cardboard, heavy cloth, drop cloth… use what you have available to you.

Step #2: Choose Your Favorite Shape of Angel’s Wing

I looked at all kinds of pictures online (mostly in google image search) to find a shape that I really liked.

Step #3: Trace The Shape Onto Your Backing & Cut it Out

Angel Wings Tutorial

Step #4: Turn The First Wing Over & Trace it Out For The Second Wing (if you want 2 wings)

Angel Wings Tutorial

Angel Wings Tutorial

Step #5: Make The Feathers

I decided to use regular brown craft paper, but you could use brown paper bags, newspaper, or any other paper you might have.

Angel Wings Tutorial

– Cut strips of paper with a scalloped bottom edge
– Scrunch each one into a ball to give the paper lots of wrinkles
– Open it back up & try to give the center a little crease, so it will stand out more & look more like a feather

Angel Wings Tutorial

Step #6: Hot glue each strip of paper to the backing, beginning with an outer edge first. Glue one side, being careful to let a bit of the paper hang off the edge so you don’t see the backing. Then pull the paper towards you a little bit & hot glue the other side. The reason you’re not going to simply glue them down flat, is because this technique gives the appearance of a creased feather instead of a flat piece of paper.

Angel Wings Tutorial

Continue adding as many layers as you’d like. For the size of our wings, 3 long layers and a few short ones looked best. As we got to the top, we just angled the feathers a bit more to look like a wing.

Angel Wings Tutorial

Here is one of the wings all put together. It’s so tall my son can barely hold it up high enough!

Angel Wings Tutorial

Step #7: Decide What Finish You’d Like to Have
You might want the look of newspaper print, in which case you wouldn’t have to have any additional finish. Or, if you want a solid color, you could apply a full coverage of whatever left over spray paint you have. You could also add some glue & glitter around the edges for a nice touch.

Angel Wings Tutorial

We wanted sort of an antique look, so we opted to only highlight the feathers with some off white spray paint, then hit them with some translucent gold glitter paint.

Angel Wings Tutorial

Here’s a close up of the little hint of gold sparkle.

Angel Wings Tutorial

We love the way the finished product came out!!

Angel Wings Tutorial

Send us some pictures of your wings ~ we’d love to see them!

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12 thoughts on “Angel Wings Tutorial – How to Make Beautiful Angel Wings Free!”

  1. I love it when people put good ideas out for people to see, this is a quick and easy tutorial for a really unique project. Thanks so much!

    Reply
  2. Thanks so much! You did a wonderful job! I am in the process of making an angel statue for my son’s memorial garden. I am not happy with her wings and I will be incorporating the way you made your feathers into my concrete wings somehow. At least, I hope so. I want the wings on my angel to be more heart-shaped than they are but I’m out of ideas on what to use to make them hold their shape while the concrete sets up. I want the back of them to be feathery and that’s where I will use your idea. Only I will be dipping the paper feathers in monster mud.
    Thanks again!!

    Reply
  3. I am just so grateful for your post. I am definitely one for using what we already have. Your instructions are so helpful and practical. I’m going to add a picture once I’m done.

    Reply
  4. My daughter gave me two long solid wooden frames with,wine glass art on them (about the size of a
    Wooden door) and said can you make something out
    Of these. Your ideas would be perfect on them, and she could put these in bedroom. And I will be looking for discounted doors to do some more.

    Reply

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