How to Make Life-Size Fairy Wings For a Cute Garden Feature

Kelly-n-Tony
by Kelly-n-Tony
15 Materials
$32
5 Hours
Easy

I've been seeing life-size fairy wings (or angel wings) painted onto buildings and love the look but I don't have a large wall to paint one.


I do have a large fairy garden which would be perfect... so DIY fairy wings it is and this is how we did them for our garden:

Drawing the wing template

1. Draw the wing template

Using a large piece of cardboard I sketched and cut out a wing shape.

Cutting the wings out of plywood

2. Cut the wings out of plywood

Then hubby used it as a pattern for two fairy wings that were cut out of treated plywood.

Sanding the plywood smooth

3. Sand the plywood smooth

We both sanded the plywood smooth paying special attention to the edges.

Primer-painting the wings

4. Prime & paint

Next, I primer-painted the plywood wings white with outdoor paint.


Then I tripped on something in the garage and broke my hand icon So hubby took over and I supervised lol.

Spray-painting the DIY fairy wings

Both wings were spray painted with awesome spray paint: Rustoleum metallic turquoise. It says it's also a primer, but the color was more silvery than turquoise on unpainted wood, so we advise pre-painting the wood.

Cutting out the wing details

5. Paint the wing design

Next, we sketched a design onto poster board and he cut it out with an X-ACTO knife.

Spray-painting with the wing stencil

Laying our stencil onto the wing he spraypainted the stencil using leftover paints. We used poppy pink and pale blue.

One DIY fairy wing

One wing done...one to go...I'm pretty excited about the colors!

Attaching the wings to a post

6. Plant the post & attach the wings

We chose to put the 4x4 post backed up to trees so we wouldn't need to paint the design on the back. It's right near the entrance to our Fairy Garden!


The hole was dug 3ft deep, the post cemented in, wings attached to a board for spacing, then leveled and bolted to the post, and the excess post cut off the top.

Life-size wings for a fairy garden

We love the whimsical look of the wings and to protect the paint from the weather we clear-coat sprayed it. I was thinking of painting the post or putting wording on it at some point.

DIY fairy wings

Now anyone can become a fairy by standing in front of the wings!


Our granddaughter loves it!

Resources for this project:
See all materials
Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.
Hometalk may collect a small share of sales from the links on this page.More info
Frequently asked questions
Have a question about this project?
  2 questions
  • Patty Patty on Jul 01, 2019

    Do you have a pattern for the wings?

  • MommaBritt MommaBritt on Aug 19, 2019

    Could u post s pic of the whole fairy garden??

Comments
Join the conversation
2 of 24 comments
Next