Diy Alice in Wonderland Rocking Horsefly

     I've been working on this project for months. I have always loved the rocking horseflies in Alice in Wonderland and I am so glad this project worked out. This is currently my favorite piece of room decor that I've come up with and I may never put it away, like ever.

     Having been a fan of hanging things up and anything that moves for...maybe my entire life, I've always been trying to hang things from my ceiling, dream catchers (that I no longer have) or feathers tied to string, little creations I've made but nothing has been as awesome as this so I'm so happy to share this with everyone and I hope it inspires you to make something.

My favorite rocking horsefly.
The best part is rocking horseflies have a metalic sheen just like beetles.

     I have made two types of rocking horseflies, one is paper and wire, the other is a mishmash of stuff but both have been painted the same way and hung and look awesome together. I actually didn't expect either of them to grow on me like they have, these were only meant to be prototypes but I may just have to make a third someday to add to it.

Rocking horseflies are extremely skittish.
Trying to hold one for a photograph is nearly impossible.
Lol, I attempted to catch the large rocking horsefly only for it to spook.

What I used; feel free to substitute for things you have around the house.

Wire; copper wire I had laying around, thicker gauge, a wire hanger in thickness on the larger one and an old wire bracelet of soft metal that was easy to bend for the little one.
Paper; any kind should work, I used computer paper but newspaper would probably work a little better.
Foil; aluminum/ tin foil.
Paper towels; for some of the body building.
Hot glue; and glue gun.
White school glue.
Spray paint or any paint in any colors of your choosing; I used matte black, silver and copper.
Thread; to hang finished projects.
A pole; I had an old bamboo pole laying around.

To start with I made the body, head and legs out of wire. I built up on the large rocking horsefly using foil and hot glue before moving on to trying to paper-mache paper towels on for a better texture but I ended up covering the entire large one with hot glue giving it a more even texture instead of being porous paper towels and hot glue and cardboard, I actually like it.

     The small one is completely covered with paper that I hot glued and used paper-mache (I can't paper-mache very well so I cheat with hot glue when I can.) and gave it card-stock wings. They both have a unique look. If I had to redo the paper one, I'd try to smooth the paper down at the edges a bit more but I don't really mind the end result.

I don't think I've ever made a photo that's so long before 😵

     Where I have my Rocking Horsefly mobile hung up, it never seems to stop moving for long. The air-vent really gets it spinning. The fact that there is nothing powering it and yet mine still twirls around is part of the reason I love it so much.

Disclaimer; Rumor has it that baby rocking horseflies have no tails, that they grow into them...I totally didn't forget to put a tail on the smaller rocking horsefly, of course I couldn't have done something as human as to forget a detail! 😂