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!~

DIY War Bonnets or Indian Head dress Part I

HOW TO MAKE INDIAN HEAD DRESS / DIY INDIAN HEAD DRESS

In order to make Indian Head dress you need the following but not exactly, you can also use materials and tools which can also complete the head dress. Here is the list of the tools and materials we used:

Materials:

Fur

Small Beads (choice of color)

Medium sized beads

Long feathers

Leatherette

(White) 2 centimeter width strings

(Brown) poly canvass fabric/ bag fabric

(Brown) Yarn

Nylon

Spray paint

Barbeque Sticks

Garter

Wires

Thin foams (crypsole)

Tools:

Glue Gun & Glue Sticks

Scissors

Springs (I used cord protector instead)

Wood (I used a compound of sticks, glued together and an empty container of dishwashing paste for beadwork)

Needle

Thread/Strings

Safety Mask

Masking Tape

Pliers

Cutter

So let's get started:

Step 1 - Preparation
Prepare your materials and tools to avoid later distractions, and it won’t get in the way during creative process.

Step 2 - Start working with the base,

• I used wires to form the head-band, plus it can give flexibility in sizes of head dress users.

• Then I sew garter on both ends of the wire, making sure it not too loose and not too tight for the head.

• After that using hot glue cover the wire with thin foams, you can use any foam materials just to make it comfortable.

Step 3 – The Beadwork

Bead Holder
•Before laying the patterns of the beads, I did first the improvised bead holder/template. I used barbeque sticks and empty dishwashing paste glued together to create it.

This is the 3d model of bead holder.

Set-up the Nylon
The long nylon/string tying first from one of the T-shape sticks going through the gaps of both springs then going around to another T-shape string, repeating the process going back and forth until you fill each gap of strings, this nylon will serve as a divider for each bead.

Needles and Beads
You will then prepare a needle with strings and inserted beads, the beads will be depending on how many nylon gaps there is.

1.The blue bead is counted by gaps of the nylon,
2.The needled string was then tied first at the first line of the nylon
3.Insert the beads at the needled string & going under the nylons, push the group of beads upward filling the gaps of the nylon,
4.The needled string must go back to the hole of the beads but this time, this should go above the nylon.
5.Repeat the process.

Continue working until you ran out of the needled string; just remember to tie the end of the string under the beads so the end of the string is concealed.

The Bead Pattern
As you can see the almost finished beadwork was copied from excel I made, I changed the color of each cell and adjust it to smaller cubes to make the cell equal in sides.

Here is how to change the cell sizes, after that, you can now change individually the color of each cell.

You can create your own beadwork pattern or you can look for references from various Native American patterns.

After filling all the spaces and finishing the pattern, cut both ends of the nylon from the T-shape sticks. Then tie them by pair like a shoe laces.

yipee! you're half-way there.
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