DIY LED Isis Wings!

Last week, I showed you how I made these pretty veil wings. Hope you liked it. 🙂

This week, I want to jazz it up a little bit, and make it even more fun and Christmas-y with LED lights!

I’ve seen many pictures of LED isis wings, and I think they are very cool, but they are pretty expensive. So here’s how I made it myself. Let’s get started!

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How to Make DIY LED Isis Wings

For this project, I bought 2 sets of battery-operated LED lights. It’s important that these are battery-operated, because you can’t be plugged into an outlet when you are dancing. Also, if your wings are light colour like mine, it’s best to find lights with white cords. Each set is about 6m long.

Originally, I was looking for 1 set of 10m LED lights, but I wasn’t able to find one that’s that long at my local stores. There are online vendors that sell them like this one (affiliate). This vendor only sells in the United States. If you are in Canada, this one is what I used. I’d much prefer having just 1 battery pack, but for this project, I didn’t have time to wait for the shipping, so I picked up 2 sets of the longest LED lights that my local store carried.

Once I had the lights, I drew out how I wanted to place the lights. Basically, this was my plan. If your wings are larger, you will need longer string lights.

First, I made a little pouch to hold the battery packs. Like I mentioned earlier, it’s way easier and simpler if you have just 1 battery pack. But I had to accommodate 2 battery packs, so I measured the width and length of the battery pack, cut out a rectangle piece out of scrap fabric.

The width is twice the width of the battery pack plus 6cm or 2.5in. And the length is twice the length of the battery pack plus 8cm or 3in. (If you have just 1 battery pack, which I highly recommend, you can just change the width of the panel to the width of the battery pack plus 4cm or 1.5in)

Fold the rectangle piece right sides together and sew the side edges at a 1cm or 1/2in seam allowance.

Fold 1cm or 1/2in from the top edge twice, and do a straight stitch to secure the fold.

Flip it inside out. And I sewed down right in the middle. This way the battery packs fit in nice and snug.

Now spread your wings on the floor, and place your LED lights. I ended up placing the battery packs behind the part where the wings and the neck piece are connected. I made sure the switches of the battery packs are facing out so I can easily reach them when I’m wearing the wings. With 2 battery packs, it was a bit heavy but it wasn’t choking me and it was alright for for a short performance.

So I sewed it on by hand along the centre seam and the top of the pouch. Then I placed the LED lights according to my plan, all around the edges of the wings. There was some room in the string lights, so I distributed extra lights in a zigzag pattern along the curved section.

Then I put on a radio show to listen to, and went hand stitch the lights down. At every other light bulb, I went around the cord a few times on either side of the light bulb.

If you are thinking to add lights to regular wings you already have, make sure to measure how much string lights you need. Regular wings are huge, so you’ll need way more than what I used here. Also, some wings are made from flimsy lame fabric, so I would first check to see if the fabric would hold your LED lights.

Also, like I mentioned before, I would use just 1 battery pack next time!

And that’s it! Now it’s time to turn off the lights and play!

I love how they turned out, and since I used sheer organza, you can see the lights through the wings as if the lights are just floating around me! These wings will sure to impress the audience and these are perfect for holiday events. It’s pretty simple to make, and I think it would be so cool to use as part of troupe choreography!

Hope you liked my DIY LED isis wings / veil wings, and next week, I’ll share with you the last of the Christmas series, and we’ll light up our costumes!

If you make your own LED veil wings, please share a photo on Sparkly Belly’s Facebook page.

And if you want to learn to make belly dance costumes to go with the wings, sign up for my free course, Belly Dance Costume Making 101.

Thanks for reading, and keep sparkling! 😀

Want to make more costuming bits yourself?

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