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12/14/2014

Twinkling Fairy Wings - SparkFun Electronics

Twinkling Fairy Wings


by Dia | October 09, 2012 | 2 comments

Skill Level: Advanced

Just Winging It!


Maybe you've been looking for a good excuse to try out an e-textiles project, because you just
can't see yourself wearing an illuminated business suit to work. I feel you. But it's time to put
the tweed behind us, because it's almost Halloween! What better time to try your hand at a
twinkling, illuminated project? LED wings make an awesome accent to your costume or a fun
project to share with your little fairy or dragon! (Just make sure you don't let your kids do the
melty bits!)

Necessary supplies:
2 LilyPad Tiny Twinkle boards
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2 LilyPad coin cell battery holders, switched


Conductive thread
8 LilyPad LEDs
Cellophane- transparent, colored, or iridescent, it's up to you. I used iridescent and
colored cellophane. This is commonly used in the making of gift baskets, so look for it
near the gift wrap or the baskets.
Thick wire - I used 12 gauge aluminum floral wire. This was easy to bend into shape, but
will also be easy to bend out of shape. If you expect to put your wings to heavy use, you
might want to choose a wire made from a stiffer metal. I needed about 10 yards.
Floral tape- Whatever color you'd like- this will show through the wings, so choose a
color that coordinates. I used less than a full 60' roll.
Sewing machine- you can hand-sew these traces if you'd like, but if you have or can
borrow one, machine sewing through vinyl is a bit more pleasant, and will make your
traces very hearty, which is important, since this project is going to be sealed up, and it
will be difficult to repair traces later on.
Spray adhesive
An iron or heat gun
Optional, if you're using the iron rather than the heat gun:
Thin fabric or tissue paper
A candle

If your eyes are particularly sharp, you might notice that the wire isn't really there. I used it all.
There's a picture of the packaging, in case that makes it easier to find at the store, but you'll
have to fill in the actual wire with your imagination. I believe in you, dear reader.
First, go ahead and draw out the shape of your wings. You can do anything here- Fairy wings,
bat wings, dragon wings. Just make sure that you factor in your need for support, because it's
important that there be enough wire lines to keep your wings solid.
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Here's my sketch:

The strong black lines are my wire frame, the areas with pencil-lines will be covered with
cellophane, and the dark grey areas will be colored cellophane accents.
Next, start cutting your wire and bending it to shape. Be careful to cut pieces that are going to
be symmetrically across from each other together, so that you can cut them to the same
length. That will help you to make sure that your wings end up as even and symmetrical as
possible. I recommend starting your longest wires first, and building the smaller ones off of
them. Furthermore, if you use one long piece of wire for both sides of your longest point, and
put a large loop in the middle, it will give you a center point to attach future pieces to, which is
a handy place to work out from. You can build this center strut a little taller than the actual
center of the wings, and it will give you a good place to attach straps. Anywhere that your
wires join, wrap them around each other several times.
Here are a few wire joins:

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You can see that they've been twisted around each other a few times, and you can also see
the loops where they meet in the middle.
Here is my finished wire shape:

Here's a close-up of the stick at the bottom of mine:

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This gives me a place to put a bottom strap, but it can also be slipped into a tight top or a
corset to attach the wings without straps, which is nice!
My lines aren't perfectly smooth. There are areas where my symmetry is a little bit off, but
that's okay. The floral wire is going to smooth out a lot of the imperfections from my bending,
and some small differences between the two sides are unavoidable. As long as they're
minimal, they'll just give the wings an organic look.
Next, it's time to wrap the wire frame with floral tape. You want to wrap each piece tightly,
covering and smoothing out all joins between multiple pieces of wire. If you've worked with
floral tape before, you can skip this next bit; if you haven't, here's some information! Floral
tape is sticky on both sides, and sticks primarily to itself, not to the wire you're wrapping it
around, so it's important when you're wrapping to make sure you've got lots of overlap. If you
look closely, you'll see that the floral tape has a wrinkled, crepe-y texture. That's not just for
show! It allows the tape to stretch to fit curves and irregularities in the wire. The best way to
take advantage of this is to stretch the tape out while you're wrapping, which will pull the
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wrinkles open where you need the tape to expand to fit your bumps, bulges, corners, and
twists. Also make sure that you're wrapping the ends of your wire well, so that the floral tape
will prevent the wearer from getting poked by the pointy cut ends of the wire. Here is my first
small section completed:

You can see that the tape has both thickened and smoothed out my lines a bit, and that I've
extended my wrapping a bit past the bare end of the wire.
This is not a very fast process. It took me a couple of hours to get all of my wires covered, so
be patient, and take breaks when you need to!

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When everything is wrapped, you'll see that not only does your frame look a lot smoother and
more finished, but it's also sturdier. I've set mine on a table covered with cloth that I don't care
about. This is to make the cellophane very visible so that I can see wrinkles, and to protect my
table top from the spray adhesive.
I was excited to try out my cellophane (this is a new craft for me), so I started by doing a tiny
section up a the top of each wing. I'm opting to do a couple of color accents on my wings, and
this spot is one of those. I've cut two squares of iridescent cellophane and two squares of pink
cellophane, both significantly larger than the area I want to cover. I want the colored
cellophane on the outside, so first I've set one layer of iridescent cellophane underneath the
frame. Then, I sprayed it with a quick squirt of spray adhesive.

Carefully set the second piece of iridescent cellophane on top of it, so that the adhesive sticks
the two pieces of cellophane together with the wing frame inside.

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Next, repeat the process with the pink cellophane, so that the previous layer is sandwiched
inside of the pink.

The next step depends on your tools. If you have a heat gun, you can use it to carefully shrink
the cellophane over the frame for a nice tight fit. Err on the side of caution, because if the
cellophane gets too hot, holes will form! Press the warm cellophane gently, which will flatten it
and help it stick together, then turn the frame over and do the same to the back. If you do NOT
have a heat gun, you can use an iron on the lowest setting, being very careful not to let the iron
sit for too long in any one spot. I recommend putting some cheesecloth or paper between the
iron and the cellophane.

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Finally, trim the cellophane close to the wire.

These first bits were the roughest for me! The cellophane took a little bit of getting used to, so
if you've got some scrap wire you can make a small form out of, some practice might be a
good idea! I definitely would have benefited from it.
You've probably been wondering where all of the electronics are! I'm going to sew them to the
vinyl layer, which will be the middle of the sandwich in the largest section of my wings. First,
lay the vinyl out on your workspace and set the wing frame on top of it.

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Mark the shape you want the large middle portion of the wings to be on the vinyl, tracing
around the frame, making sure to include the area you want your lights. I had to do this with a
metallic paint pen that was in my office, because it was the only thing that would dry quickly on
the vinyl. I apologize for how difficult this makes it to see the lines in the photo.

Draw a large dot in each place where you would like an LED, four on each wing, trying to line
them up so that each will be able to trace a clear path back to the LilyTwinkle boards by the
wing base. You want to make sure none of the traces will have to cross over the others. It's
also important to leave room for one large negative trace to connect all four of the negative
LED pins to the negative pin on the LilyTwinkle board.

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Go ahead and draw the traces- place one LilyTwinkle board on each side of the wing base,
and draw a line from each numbered pin to the positive pin of an LED. These lines and the
stitches will be visible through the translucent wings, so you'll want to try to keep them
aesthetically pleasing. On my wings, I wanted the battery packs to be symmetrical, so I faced
them away from each other. Doing this meant that the LilyTwinkle boards also had to be
reversed, so I placed one of them face-down. This is completely optional, and it's up to you if
you'd rather leave both face-up and place your battery packs facing the same direction.

Draw one long trace that passes the negative pin of every LED and then goes down to the
negative pin of the LilyTwinkle board, making sure not to cross or come too close to any
positive traces.
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Time to sew! If you have one, I encourage you to use a sewing machine for this. Most of our
conductive threads work very well in the bobbin of a sewing machine, and machine stitching is
very durable. It's also easier than hand-sewing through a finicky material like vinyl.

You're going to sew over each drawn trace individually, and it is important that you leave a
long section of thread at each end of every trace.

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When you have traced all of your traces (see what I did there?) with the sewing machine, it's
time to place your LEDs. Pick one of the traces that leads from an LED back to where a
numbered pad on the board will be. Pick up the long section of conductive thread that you left
on the end of the trace furthest from where you want the LilyTwinkle board to be, and thread it
onto a hand sewing needle. Using the needle, wrap the thread through the POSITIVE hole of
the LED (marked with a + sign!) several times, and then knot it well, pulling the LED as close
to the vinyl as you can. The bumpy side of the LED board should be facing up, away from the
vinyl, with the flat side down. After knotting the thread well, so that the positive side of the LED
is secure, you can move on to the next LED, repeating these steps with the long tail of
conductive thread that leads to another numbered pin on the LilyTwinkle board. Continue this
way until all 8 LEDs have been sewn down on the positive side, each ready to be connected
to a different numbered LilyTwinkle pin.

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Now, re-thread your needle and sew the negative end of each LED to the long negative trace
you built, looping through several of the machine stitches to ensure a strong connection. When
all 4 on one side are attached, wrap the long tail of conductive thread at the end of your
negative trace closest to the LilyTwinkle board several times around the negative pin, knotting
it carefully. Repeat the process on the other wing.

Move down to the opposite end of one of these traces, where you've left a long tail of
conductive thread where you want to put the LilyTwinkle board. Thread this on your handsewing needle, then wrap and knot it around the appropriate numbered hole on your
LilyTwinkle board. Repeat this for each hole until the positive end of each LED is connected
by a length of thread to one pin of the LilyTwinkle board.
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All 8 LEDs should now be sewn to one numbered pin on a LilyTwinkle board on the positive
side, and to a single long negative trace on the negative side. The negative trace should be
sewn to the negative LilyTwinkle pin. It's important at this point to make sure that any
remaining long tails are cut off of your project, and that all discarded thread ends and scraps
are picked up and thrown away, so that none are clinging to your project causing trouble.
Once you're sure it's all clean, place a battery in your battery holder. Use alligator clips or two
pieces of thread to connect a positive terminal of the battery to the positive pin on the
LilyTwinkle board and a negative terminal of the battery to the negative pin on the LilyTwinkle
board. You should start to see lights turn on and off. Wait long enough to confirm that all 4
lights turn on, then repeat this process on the other wing. We won't actually sew the battery
holder down yet. This vinyl will be sandwiched inside of cellophane, so if we want to be able to
change the battery in the holder, we'll have to wait and add the battery pack on the top layer.
Lay a large bottom layer of cellophane on your work surface. This should be large enough to
cover the entire main area of your wings, so go ahead and factor in some overlap to make
sure you've got everything covered. I've laid the frame down to give an idea of the relative
size, but you'll want to pick it back up for the next step.

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Spray this with adhesive and carefully smooth the vinyl cut-out onto it in the appropriate place.
Next, place your frame on top of both layers. I didn't find it necessary to spray another layer of
adhesive, but feel free if it will make your frame more secure.

It's important to make sure that everything lines up at this stage, so if you need to bend any
adjustments into the frame so that the LEDs fall in the correct place, do so now. I wanted to
add another pair of darker-colored accents here, so I cut them to shape and smoothed them
onto the frame here. If you're not using any accents, go ahead and skip this step!

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Spray one more layer of adhesive over frame, vinyl, cellophane, and all, and set another large
sheet of cellophane on top, closing the sandwich. Firmly smooth all of these layers together,
getting it as flat as you can. Because of the adhesive, there's not a lot you can do to get out
wrinkles. Do the best you can to make them nice and flat, and when you begin heating it up,
the wrinkles will blend into the texture you add.

Cut off any excess cellophane that get in the way. Don't trim it all the way, but go ahead and
trim it to within a couple of inches of where you want it to end up. Peel it carefully away from
areas of the wire you don't want covered. This part feels a little bit like opening a present, so
feel free to savor that.

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Start heating the cellophane carefully with your air gun or iron. You'll need to do the whole
wing, top and bottom, on both sides, so this gets a little bit tedious if your wings are big. This
is a GREAT time to be making wings for a kid! Make sure that you heat up all of the little
nooks and crannies, and that the cellophane really seals around the wire frame. With the hot
air gun, I tried to heat a small area, then press it down firmly with my palm, repeating on each
small section. Once you've got one side done, flip the whole thing over and do the back.
Again, make sure that you've got a good seal around the frame, pressing the cellophane firmly
down against the wire while it's heated. When you're satisfied with the security of the frame
inside the cellophane, go ahead and trim it down to a centimeter outside of where you'd like
the finished borders of the wings to be.

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For the next part, I continued using the heat gun, but if you've been using an iron up until now, a
candle flame should also work fine. You want to very carefully melt the edges of the plastic
layers all the way around, cellophane, any overlapping vinyl, and all. I melted it as close to the
frame as possible, but it's a matter of choice. If you'd like to leave some outside of the frame
decoratively, that's certainly up to you. With a stick of incense, you can even carefully burn a
lacy pattern into the excess.

I added another small section of cellophane, but that's just a repeat of the first set of
instructions. You can add as much as you need to complete the look of your wings. Here are
mine, with all of the cellophane finished.

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It's time to finish off the electronics by adding the battery packs. Because of the reflective
nature of the cellophane, these parts are extremely difficult to photograph, so please be
cautious and follow the written instructions carefully. Using a hobby knife, very carefully cut and
lift off the section of cellophane covering the bottom of the LilyTwinkle board on one side,
exposing the positive and negative pins. Take care that you do not cut any of the threads from
your previous traces.

Line a battery pack up with the board so that one negative is directly under the negative on the
board and one positive is directly under the positive on the board. With conductive thread,
wrap a few stitches around the negative pin on the board, which should already have a few
stitches from the negative trace connecting the LEDs. Hand sew a few stitches right through
the cellophane and vinyl of the wing to your negative battery pack hole, and sew that down with
a few stitches. Continue hand sewing to the other negative battery pack hole, making sure that
there are a couple of stitches between the two sides of the battery pack to keep things firmly
in place.

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Knot and cut your thread, then connect the positive LilyTwinkle pin to the positive holes of the
battery pack in the same manner. Repeat this entire process on the other wing, so that both
LilyTwinkle boards are connected on the positive and negative pins to the battery packs.

This completes the electronics, so now you can test them out! Go ahead and slide a battery
into each battery holder, writing side up. If you are like me, have a small, painful heart flutter
because nothing turns on and you've forgotten that the battery holders have switches on them.
Now turn on the switches, and watch the lights on the wings start to twinkle. If you're careful to
turn both on at the same time, the lights will be symmetrical and coordinated!

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