Monday, October 15, 2012

How to Make Antlers!


So I have been looking at how to make me some nice deer antlers for a while, and honestly I couldn't find a single post anywhere on a SIMPLE & EASY way to make some antlers that didn't involve
 a) branches b) clay c) real antlers d) paper mache e) require me to go out and buy materials
I know cheap and laziness isn't a good combo, but as they say "necessity is the mother of all invention" and combined with my cheapness and laziness I came up with a super simple & easy way to make some antlers. Now you may be wondering "why?". No it's not for Halloween, although I am tempted to wear them for Halloween. But they are a prop for one of the dances the folkloric dance team is working on. I had seen the real prop that is supposed to go with this dance but they wanted $450!! Um....how about no. So for now (until I become a billionaire) this will be perfect! And plus did I mention my version was FREE! So without anymore babbling here is how I made them.

Materials:
  • aluminum foil
  • painters tap/scotch tape/any paint able tape
  • wire (not too thin but not too thick either, I got mine at my local hardware store and it was the only size they had and it worked great)
  • wire cutters
  • needle nosed pliers
  • leather like fabric/ or any fabric you would like cut into about half inch strips
  • paint & paint brush & paper plate for your paint
  • metal headband
  • hot glue gun & hot glue
How To:

  • First map out what you want your antlers to look like and about how big you want them.
  • Then, with your aluminum foil roll it length wise and start making the shapes. I did each point separate and then just hot glued them together where I wanted them
  • Once all the pieces are hot glued together where you want them it should look like this...
 
  • After you have your antlers how you like them it is time to start taping! so get your tape out and make sure that every inch of your antlers are taped. (you can see I had tried to wrap one of the antlers in contact paper.....it didn't turn out so well, I had to take it off and wrap it with tape instead)
  • Once you are done taping them they should look like this!  
  • Now comes the paint! so start painting your antlers the way you want them.
  •  It took about 2 coats of the light ivory paint for it to cover all traces of the blue tape. Then I added browns and darker ivories to them.
 
  • Now set your antlers to the side and wait for them to completely dry.
  • After they are completely dry take about a 12 inch length of your wire (sorry I forgot to take pictures of the rest of the steps) and push it through the bottom of your antler so you have an even amount of wire on both sides of the antler.
  • Now place the antler with the wire sticking through it on top of your metal headband (positioning isn't crucial when it comes to whether to move it left or right, because you will still be able to slide it to the sides while it's on the headband for now)
  • Now wrap the wire that is sticking out of the antler around the headband until it is totally secure and the antler doesn't flop forward or backward. (I had to play with wrapping and unwrapping it until I liked the rigidity of the antler)
  • Once you are done wrapping the wire around the antler and the headband start on the second antler.
  • Now that you have both of your antlers wire wrapped to the headband slide the antlers around on the headband until you like their position.
  • Now take your strips of fabric and start wrapping it around the headband making sure you hot glue as you go and to cover as much of the wire at the antlers as possible.
  • Once you are finished wrapping the headband in fabric you can leave it like that and you are finished!
OR If you want to be able to tie it around your head
  •  just cut your fabric to your desired length (I had cut my strips super long, eh about a yard, because I needed them to be super secure on the dancer's head) and hot glue the strips onto the ends of the headband and voila! You now have an awesome antler headpiece that cost you next to nothing! (it was totally free for me to make this, I already had everything I needed on hand!)
 
 
 

2 comments:

  1. I have to admit these are so creep-tastic that I love them. You did a great job on constructing them.

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  2. Perfect for a hunter's wife. Thanks for sharing.

    Lura
    x

    ReplyDelete