February 2012

EL Wire Wings for Halloween 2009

For Halloween 2009 my daughter got a butterfly princess costume. We thought it might be nice to light it up for safety and a nice effect. I thought of EL wire, which I'd just discovered and bought some including a sequencer from CoolNeon.  I decided on a pattern involving four loops on the wings as well as an outline around the edge.  Stripping and soldering EL wire takes some patience but I found it wasn't difficult.  The battery pack and sequencer were mounted in the center of the wings (held by two rubber bands).  What took by far the most effort was sewing the EL wire to the wings.  For some materials there are other attachment techniques but with the very thin material it just seemed like traditional sewing was the way to go.  It was a joint effort with my wife and I each sharing in about half of the sewing work.  It was definitely worth it though, the costume really attracted some attention and our daughter really enjoyed it!The first video shows a first test of the wings in a dark room.
The second shows them in action on Halloween!