How To Make A Hawaiian Feather Lei

The best part about making a Hawaiian Lei out of feathers is that, unlike a lei made from flowers, the feathers won’t wither up and they will more or less stay the same color. Making these feather leis is a old Hawaiian art form and was done also before the arrival of the first westerners in the 17^th century.

Making this feather lei is not difficult, but it does require a good bit of time. You can create your lei using just one color of flowers or you can use different color and add other kinds of feathers to add charm and color to your lei.

What do you need for this project?

1- A strip of material as long as you are going to want to make the lei and four centimeters wide

2- Needle and thread

3- Feathers

First thing you need to make sure of is that you have enough feathers to complete the lei.

Next fold the material I half across the entire length so that now you have a thicker piece of cloth two centimeters wide.

Take two feathers and gently bend them with your fingers so that they are curved a bit.

Now starting at one end of the cloth, about five inches from the end, start to attach the feathers to the material. Using the needle and thread attach one feather on either side with the curve going out. Make sure that the stitching is good and tight. Attach the next two flowers half way down the first two so that half of the feathers are still exposed.

Continue along the length of the material until you get to about four inches from the other end.

That’s it your done enjoy your new creation.

ALOHA!

Read more about this craft and culture at http://www.tetura.com/main.html

Hawaiian Feather Art Of The 18th Century

Historically man came to the Hawaiian Islands about two thousand years ago. Up until thearrival of Capitan James Cook in 1778 the materials that the native Hawaiians used in their art were few. These materials consisted of wood carvings, petroglyphs (rock engravings), bark cloth (which they call kapa in the Hawaiian Islands and tapa elsewhere in the pecific), tattoos and of course what is important to us feather art.

There are two great products that the native Hawaiians made out of feathers. One was capes made out of feathers and netting. And the second was the feather Lei which is the necklaces that you always see made out of flowers.

This feather cape is called a `Ahu`ula

This feather cape even though it looks the same is called by a different name. this feather cape is called a Ahuli`i.

This feather cape is made out of feathers from the Pueo bird which is actually a Hawaiian short-eared owl.

Here is a picture of a 18^th century feather Lei.

Simple DIY Feather Placemat

This is a great project you can do just for the sake of arts and crafts or if you are trying to put together an event with a feather theme.

What you will need

· Glossy colored poster board

· Real feathers

· Pencil

· Glue

· String

· Scissors

These are instructions on how to make a circular feather placemat.

· Decide how large you want to make the placemat. Use the string and pencil to draw a perfect circle. Tie the string to the pencil, put the pencil on one edge of the circle, hold the string in the center and draw the circle while keeping the pencil straight.

· Cut out the circle using the scissors

· Turn the circle upside down and attach the feathers with the glue. Have fun with this part. You can space and arrange the feather however you wish.

· Let it dry and you are all done.

If you want to make a square shaped placemat all you need to do is use a ruler and cut the poster board to the size that you want and follow the same instructions.

You can then also decide if you want to attach the feathers to all four sides or just two of them.

You can also buy feather trim to attach to the sides of your placemat.

Check out our large variety of feathers at featherstore.com