Birdcage Veils...not as easy as they look!

I love the look of birdcage veils. They’re so vintage-y and cute. And since they’re so small, I figured, “How hard can it be?” It turns out, harder than it looks. And with such a small amount of material, I can’t mess up over and over.

The good news is that the material is cheap. I bought about a yard on Etsy for $4. And the material even came with a little clear comb to attach the veil to. Now, this was my second purchase of veiling on Etsy. I somehow lost the first veiling when I was carting it back and forth between my house and my mom’s. So who knows where that is now, but I hope it turns up so I have more to practice with!

The first time the veiling came, I think I had read one or two tutorials, so I was ready to take a stab at it. (You should know, I am not very patient, and I often start projects thinking they will be super easy, only to find out I need to go back and rethink things.) With that first try, I sewed a side of the veiling to the comb that came with it and checked out my work in the mirror to see how to proceed. I could not figure it out beyond that first side. There was just a ton of veiling (no, of course I didn’t cut it to size first, since I didn’t know what size I wanted it).

After that, I went back to do more research and find tutorials from people who have actually DIY-ed birdcage veils. It turns out there are a ton of tutorials online. But even with all of those resources, it’s hard to figure out how to get the veil to lay right. I should also mention that I ordered my veiling shorter than I wanted it to hang on my face, so I’m using what I learned from those tutorials a little and improvising a lot.

It seems like most people use one comb to sew the veil to, then attach that one comb to their hair. But since I want my veil to cover my eyes, I’m trying to use that one comb on just one side, then attach the other side to bobby pins. What I have so far is interesting. Here's the look I'm going for:

I really like the one side I've completed with the comb, but I’m not crazy about the cockatiel-like height of the veil on top of my head. I have to figure out how to fix that. I keep trying to wrap my head around how I would make the back shorter while keeping the front from being embedded in my face (I want more of a bubble look), but I haven’t figured it out yet.

This is what I view as embedded in the face

This is the cute bubble look I'm going for

I am not giving up hope yet. I am going to yet again do more research and try to figure out how to make this thing work the way I want it to. However, I may end up compromising and figuring out how to make it work the way other people have. Back to the drawing board…

And if all else fails, I may do this: