Instant Noodles: Post-Apocalyptic Angel Wings

Today is October 1st, and you know what that means! It's time to start thinking about Halloween. This entire month, my how-to posts will focus on distressing, blood, and everything downright creepy.

Day One: Post-Apocalyptic Angel Wings

Angels don’t always look all pure and pretty, as everyone knows. But if you’re bored with simply trading out the white feathers for black, try this.

Cut out your feathers from newspaper. That’s right: newspaper. Use sections with a lot of text, because nothing ruins the effect like having Garfield on your wings. Crumple each feather and then flatten, and then coat liberally with craft polyurethane, like the kind you would use as a final protective coat on a sword. Here’s one of the few cases where it’s better to use the polyurethane that turns yellow when it dries. Allow the polyurethane to drink completely, and then use these feathers when making your angel wings.

What the polyurethane does with the newspaper is that it both yellows the newspaper to look like it’s been aged, gives it a creepy oily sort of sheen, and it makes it slightly transparent so that you can halfway see both sides of the print. Because this makes the paper brittle, I don’t recommend stapling down or stitching them to the wing structure. This is one instance where glue works just fine.

Instant Noodles: Impromptu Sleeve Board

Sleeve boards are really useful for pressing seams on, you guessed it, sleeves. And everyone likes crisply pressed seams!

Warning: this is not one of those DIY projects that are going to be super-awesome and you’ll immediately integrate it into your collection of sewing-related equipment. This is more along the lines of, “I need these seams pressed this time five days ago” emergency.

You need: 1 yardstick and 2 volumes of your choice from Harry Potter, vols. 4-7.

Lay the yardstick perpendicular on your ironing board and put the Boy Who Lived on top. Drape your sleeve on the bit of yardstick that sticks out. Stabilize the yardstick with one hand and iron with the other.

(In a pinch, Harry can be replaced with vampires or hobbits.)

Instant Noodles: Who Owns a Bodkin?

Elastic waistband pants are a nice, comfortable option for cosplay, if applicable. But shoving elastic through its casing is really time-consuming and sometimes impossible without a bodkin.

Who has a bodkin?

If you don’t, use a tip I learned this spring: take two safety pins and use one to attach the end of the elastic to the beginning of the casing. With the other, stick it parallel onto the elastic itself and move the safety pin through. As long as the safety pin fits through the casing, you’ll be done in no time.

Instant Noodles: I Don’t Have an Overlock/Serger and My Fabric Frays Whenever I Stare at It!

Nothing works quite like an overlock machine, but if you're in a tight spot, then don’t worry. It’s not you, it’s your fabric. If your fabric is fraying like crazy, put away your Fray Check and run the guilty edges through your machine with a zigzag stitch. Problem solved.