Making an EL Wire costume is easier than you think. First you need an idea, second some great wire, and lastly a place to wear it out. EL Wire is a thin copper wire, about the size of regular speaker wire that glows like you wouldn't believe. Finding places to wear it should be your easiest task, but beware, you may become the most popular person on the block!
The idea can sometimes be harder than the implementation, but this is where you can get the most creative. Say for instance you knew that you wanted a green costume. Start by making a list. Think of all the things you could create using the color green; grass, trees, insects, the earth, fruits, emeralds, olives, leprechauns and the list goes on. If you liked one of your options inside that list, feel free to expand on that, including all types of certain trees, fruits or insects, like apples, grasshoppers, or evergreens. Once you have a good list of creative ideas, that's when the fun begins where you can start to model on paper your ideas. The sky is the limit on ideas, and if you can dream it, chances are you can make it.
Now once you have narrowed down ideas for different costumes, it's time to start thinking about putting your dream into a reality. An easy way to get a feel for what you need to order is simply taking some old shoelaces and using that as your tape measure. They bend easily and can give you a pretty accurate measure as to what you would need. As a rule of thumb, it is always easier to order more wire than less wire, as typically around big events, planning ahead will save your costume. Plus if you have any extra material, you can either make a smaller costume with it or accessorize. EL Wire is generally a good idea to order about 1 extra foot per 5 feet of planned wire usage. The reason being is there are usually unexpected distances or pieces that you don't necessarily plan ahead for. Great EL Wire costumes can be made with as little as 20 feet of wire, and really as much as you want. If this is a nightclub setting, you may be better off using 20-40 feet, where as a large venue like the Burning Man Festival, you can get away with using 100's of feet of wire per costume.
Fabric glue and plain ol' thread is the easiest application for placing the wire onto your garment of choice. Clear glue is best, as you will most certainly make a mess (at least your first time), and clear glue doesn't show up nearly as much. You will still see from time to time a little heavy handed squeezes of glue, but at the same time, the clear glue makes it look more natural. Keeping the glue tight and carefully placing the wire is the key to a good costume, have it bend where you intend it to bend, and straight where you intend the wire to go straight is the biggest task when applying the wire.
Once you have finished the applying the EL Wire on your garment, the next step is finding a place to wear it. A couple of great places to wear EL Wire costumes are here: Any large music festivals like EDC, or Coachella, to massive week long events like Burning Man. It's amazing the amount of heads that will turn with something as simple as EL Wire Shoelaces or making an EL Wire hat. For more extravagant costumes, you are basically a celebrity which get people writing about you across the internet. EL Wire is a great costuming accessory and a very neat new technology that get people talking. Pick some EL Wire up at your favorite location across the internet and go wild. You won't regret it.