Things are ramping up now that the wedding is drawing near and craft projects really help to make me happy amidst all the craziness.

At our wedding, we wanted something to identify our friends who are helping out so that guests can easily approach them for any assistance. As bracelets won’t be suitable for our male friends and not as easily seen, we decided brooches would be a better option.

This would also make a nice simple gift for friends (or yourself!) if you’re not preparing for a wedding :)

We didn’t have a specific theme for the wedding but rather a general color theme – coral, mint, gold and grey. This made it much easier to just put pretty things together without a specific reason :)

For our brooches, we decided on simple feathers dipped in gold to suit the color theme. And since birds of a feather flock together (trying not to be cheesy here), we figured it was apt that our closest friends were wearing them!

Here’s how to make them:

I couldn’t find feathers that were small, sturdy and that didn’t cost a bomb. So the next best thing was to get some badminton shuttlecocks. I got three at Daiso (the two dollar store) and this makes for about 15 sets of two feathers each.

To get the feathers out, cut all the connecting strings. The first row of string was glued for some reason and it’ll take a bit of effort to pull it off the feather completely. I decided to just leave some bits on to keep it raw. It also helped with the wire binding later on if you don’t mind a raw finish.

Once you’ve cut all the string around the shuttlecock, just pull hard and the feathers should come out! I’m not sure if high quality shuttlecocks are harder to deal with, but the inexpensive ones make it pretty easy to dismantle :)

You should end up with a whole lot of feathers in a consistent size. If you don’t mind leaving them white, you’re halfway there!

To make them gold, I dipped them in gold liquid gilding and used a brush to even it out.

I decided to leave the ends white for slight contrast and also because it’d make it easier to hold while painting.

Leave them out to dry. I placed them on the waxy side of freezer paper so they wouldn’t stick as much.

Once dry, pick out two feathers and make sure you’re happy with the way they cross.

Use some thin wire to bind the feathers together. The gold didn’t really match here, but I used whatever I had handy and I think it looked alright in the end thankfully!

Use one hand to hold the joints together and the other hand to wrap the wire around. Try to wrap around the different joints to hold it down securely, the same way you would with making a basic kite joint.

Grab a safety pin (the smaller the better so it won’t leave too big a hole on clothes), and leave yourself some wire to secure the pin to the feathers.

Leave the safety pin open so it’s easier to wrap the wire round. Go through the eyelet at the base of the pin several times, and the body of the pin too. Wrap till it’s secure.

And there you have it! A simple gold dipped feather brooch. I decided not to be a perfectionist with the wrapping as it looks quite nice in a non-fussy way with the wire wrapped around like that.

I’ll probably try to use some of the feathers for the boutonnieres too, but will share that another day when I get down to it.

Thank you for reading and have a good weekend in the meantime! :)