Last year I participated in a fun little festival called "Living Myth Legends Fest" at a beautiful venue that usually hosts an event called "Ren in the Glen." At Living Myth I volunteered to be a part of the cast as Clotho, one of the three fates. I enjoyed it so much that when Ren in the Glen asked me to be a part of their Fairy Court the next year I quickly agreed! I spent most of the first few months preparing a choreographed dance with some of the other members of the fairy court. We performed it at a couple of local shows to practice for Ren in the Glen. For those shows I threw together a quick fairy outfit with the main piece being wings I made out of my favorite silk flags.

To make the wings I started with a basic design. I wanted to be able to wear it like a back pack for easy on and off. I started with a piece of felt which I folded in half (hamburger style) and stitched together to make a little envelope. I added two foam dowel rods and sewed those into the felt envelope, then I stitched the top closed. I crocheted a cover for it, using single crochet stitches, with soft yarn that was pretty close to my skin tone and attached that around both sides of the felt. Then I crocheted straps using double crochet stitches so that it would be more a more comfortable strap on my shoulders. I added a 3rd strap that would go around my waist to stabilize the wing support. Then I slipped my silk flags over the foam dowels, secured them with sewing pins, and had pretty flowy wings!

Originally I had planned to bring my dogs to Ren in the Glen (I have a corgi, he's perfect for the fairy court!), but ultimately decided to leave them home due to heat concerns. This left me struggling to come up with a character for the fairy court! TikTok (This particular video on TikTok) and the new D&D book "Fitzbans Treasury of Dragons" saved the day however and I developed Papilionidanaus (aka Dani) the Fairy Dragon who is gathering a hoard of friends!

 For the base outfit I used the green pieces of my Leafy Sea Dragon costume, but I added an additional skirt, sparkly top, and a shimmery shawl to give it a more "dragon scale" type look. But I also wanted to look a little more "dragon-y' so I ordered some bedazzled claws off amazon and made a set of dragon horns. I had thought about using this as an opportunity to finish the base of my Fearne horns… but I only gave myself 3 days to complete this so I chose to go with a toilet paper roll method instead… It looks a lot cooler than it sounds I promise!

I started by cutting the toilet paper rolls down one side and then cutting horizontally to make rings. I did this to about 6 toilet paper rolls and then started assembling the horns. I started with a full ring, and then cut each additional ring a little smaller so they would sit inside each other. To hold the cardboard together I used a copious amount of hot glue. I did my best to make the two horns twist and turn in the same way, but I also really liked that they weren't perfectly symmetrical, it looks so much more organic and natural that way! Once the internal structure was done, I wanted to smooth out the ridges a little bit to make it look less like toilet paper roll rings, so I filled in the ridges with hot glue until they were to my liking.

 I wanted to disguise where the horns attached to my head so I filled in a couple of filigree shaped silicone molds with hot glue to make embellishments for the horns. I painted everything with fabric paint so that if I hit them on something, the paint would be less likely to crack, and hopefully make them at least a little water resistant. To attach the horns to my head I wanted to attach them to a sturdy headband, but I really didn't like how that looked, so I cut out all of the hand stitching I had done through 2 layers of cardboard... I instead hot glued another piece of toilet paper roll ring to the inside to create an opening I could slip a ribbon through. This ended up looking much nicer and was far more comfortable than a headband. I added more hot glue embellishments to the headband and called it done!

When my claws finally came in the mail they did not fit me properly (I expected this) so I filled in the rings with hot glue, let the glue cool a little, and then molded the hot glue inside the rings to my fingers. I individually marked each ring so that I knew what finger it belonged on. I can't say that this was the best method, but with less than 24hrs left to go it had to be good enough for that weekend!

I also made a little fabric scroll that my "New friends" could doodle on to join my hoard to friends. With that the costume was done, all of my accessories packed up, and it was time to dazzle the crowds as a fairy dragon of the fairy court of Ren in the Glen!

 Do you think you would have agreed to be my friend?