DIY War Bonnets or Indian Head dress Part II

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HOW TO MAKE INDIAN HEAD DRESS / DIY INDIAN HEAD DRESS PART II

Step 4 – The Feathers The feathers we wanted has 2 colors in it sky blue from roots and black from top, the base color of the feather is black, which is by that time only available in the market, this color wasn’t easy to change color, so we think on how make the roots to be sky blue.

Colorizing Feathers

Bleaching vs Brush Painting vs Spray Painting vs Dying – we have tried these various methods but we only choose 1 mode for colorizing black feathers.

Since it is colored black, just like hair in Asia, we decided to bleach it to remove the natural black color. It won’t totally remove the color instead it becomes blonde.

Here is the process of bleaching and here’s the products we used.

Make sure you use gloves.

1 solution and 1 bleaching powder, we used the ratio 1 is to 1 if im not mistaken.

Here is the result, although we remove the natural black color, we do not recommend it for further colorizing, dying , painting or even spray painting. Why? Since it’s bleached it destroyed the natural form arrangement of the feather, plus it makes the feather brittle.

We also tried acrylic painting only, not also recommended because it also altered the form of the feather. Not recommendable…

Spray Painting
From different modes we choose spray painting since its, maintains the original form of the feather plus it gives vibrant colors and perfect gradient to the feathers, here’s what we did.

We tape the feathers individually and align it to plywood so there will be less waste spray paint. But make sure you don’t compress them closely.

I then now spray the roots evenly at first, letting them dry for a minute then comeback for the second up until third coats.

Step – 5 Completing the tail feather

This was the finished tail feather ready to be mounted to the base of the head dress. This is consist of a 2 pieces feather for each rolled brown poly canvass fabric(light brown), yarns, and (black) fur. Inside the rolled poly canvass contains a barbeque stick holding the fur and feathers roots so they will stand up straight.

You can see a simple instruction we provided. Just a tip, end your yarn at the back of the tail feather.

Step 6 - Base cover

Before you put the decorations on the cover you’ll need first to put holes.

The cover is also hot glued to the base,

The white laces from the base was carefully inserted to each individual top hole of the cover, once the white lace got back from the same hole it was inserted at first and after inserting also the tail feather. The white lace should also be glued to the back of the base.

This is how it should look like now decorated with beads, tail feathers and formed x white laces; the excess leatherette will be later hot glued at the back of the base, which serves also a cover from the white laces at the back of the base.

Step 7 - The Side Decoration

The side decoration are made up of white thin foam that is punched at the center for those leatherette lace, this thin white foam is bordered with circle leatherette. It also includes long furs, length up to shoulders.

Step 8 – Polishing

We also put nylon so they won’t make large gaps, and act as support for each tailed feathers.

Tip you can add hot glue to some parts of the tailed feather to position them better.

Tadaaaa!!!

The Finished Product

Looks cool at leafy or green Background

And you're done! Thanks you! See more tutorials here

No time making your own native american head dress? let us provide it for you. just comment, contact or pm us through our fb page so we can discuss it. thanks again and enjoy!~