We Made A Phoenix Topper For Our Harry Potter Tree!

WARNING: There are scammer sites currently trying to sell our Phoenix topper using stolen photos from this post. John and I don't sell these, so please don't purchase from anyone claiming to make these online! Also if you see the ads on Facebook, please report them, and warn others in the comments.

Thanks, gang!

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I still don't have the best pictures of this yet, but I just can't wait any longer to show you guys:

 

 BEHOLD! 

Our new Phoenix tree topper!

 

::flails::

Would you believe we started this project almost two months ago? ARG. It's been a long road for a surprisingly simple DIY; we just had to find all the ways it wouldn't work first. Let me walk you through the process, then I'll show you the SUPER cool part at the end. (Spoiler: IT LIGHTS UP.)

I've been staring at this for too long, so you guys will have to tell me if it's blindingly obvious that we started with this:

The bird, I mean. Not Tonks.

That's a plastic eagle decoy, which you can get for about $22 online. It's hollow - so nice and light - with detachable wings.

Our first step was to cut around the feet with a Dremel tool, so we could get rid of the rock base:

We also glued the wings in place permanently and covered the screw holes with epoxy putty.

John built the perch from a scrap decorative rod and two finials. To hold the bird in place he later inserted two metal rods in the legs, which slot into pre-drilled holes in the perch. 

We used more epoxy putty to hold those metal rods in the legs, and also to fill out the toes and the backs of the hollow legs:

Next we used acetone to strip off as much of the body paint as we could:

Why strip the paint off instead of just painting over it? Well, see, we had this crazy idea...

And it kind of worked!

(We quickly figured out regular Christmas lights get too hot, so we swapped those out for LEDs.)

To keep my paint job a little translucent, I mixed regular craft paint with Mod Podge in a 50/50 blend. Then I went to work painting on a base coat of blended red, orange, and yellow:

I also painted the feet and beak black. It looks pretty terrible at this point, but hang on for two more steps - that's where the magic happens. ;)

Next John and I added some crown feathers, which help break up the obvious eagle profile:

The feathers are each inserted into little holes we drilled with the Dremel. I curled the feathers with a flat iron, and later I also tinted them to darken them up a little.

Now here's where the paint job gets better: I first tested the aging with black, but that was too much:

See the back? Yuck. So instead I applied a thin coat of dark burgundy for the aging (on the right wing) which was juuuuust right. As always, you paint on a small section, then immediately wipe it off again, so the paint sticks in the cracks.

See how all the feather detail stands out now?

The neck ruff area has been a constant thorn in my side; I feel like it's a dead give-away that this used to be an eagle. Short of re-sculpting the entire torso area, though, I don't know of any way to disguise it. I can only hope the full effect - and distance, since it's way up on the tree top - will fool people.

(By the by, my original plan was to cover the entire bird in craft feathers. That... didn't work. Ha!)

We removed the plastic eyes the eagle came with, then had some fun with googly eyes:

Not gonna lie: I am STILL laughing at this.

When we couldn't find any good translucent beads to use for the eyes, John decided to make his own with resin. He made some small clear domes, and then I scrunched up a little shiny foil behind them (a candy wrapper, in fact) to catch the light:

Sneak peek of the light-up action.

I chose to leave off the pupils so the eyes would have maximum glow, but you could always paint pupils on the back side of the resin.

I've always wanted a phoenix topper where the tail extends down the tree like garland. You know, because I always want easy, achievable things. :D

 So we started with a $6 feather boa:

(It's doubled-up here, so twice this long.)

Then I added feathers in red, orange, and yellow. The craft feathers I ordered were SUPER bright, though, so first I tinted all of them to darken 'em up:

                       

I used watered-down black paint on the red feathers, and red on the orange and yellow feathers. They dried a lot lighter than I expected, so in the end the orange feathers look about the same, but at least the red and yellow have some nice toning. As you can see, painting the feathers also made them a lot smaller and sleeker, and just more "real." 

To attach the feathers to the boa I wrapped each quill in double-stick tape and just sort of jammed it in there. Probably not the best method, but amazingly enough only one or two fell off when I had to remove the entire tail and put it back on again. (Tree light drama. Ug.)

The tree itself has had a lot of starts and stops and complete do-overs as well, but I'm pretty happy with what we've ended up with so far. I ditched all the purple ornaments from last year and instead went with a subtle red/orange/gold ombre effect. I'll have final photos of it later, but for now here's a video pan-up to give you an idea - and to show you the lighted effect of the phoenix!

As you can see the lights are very spotty in the phoenix, but it's kind of a neat look, almost like pixie dust or flames dancing around on him. The twinkle gives it a more magical effect, I hope:

And that's our phoenix topper! I hope it was worth the wait!

We're getting SO CLOSE to our Fantastic Beasts Potter Party, btw, so expect a few more little (or not so little) projects over the next few weeks leading up to the big reveal!