Kelly's Christmas Angel Tutorial

A while back I was reading Kelly Casanova's blog and noticed in her sidebar a really cute little Christmas Angel and made a mental note to make one this Christmas. Of course I forgot all about it until I went over to the blog last week to find Kelly's recipe for Silverbeet and Ricotta Pie as I had made my first batch of Ricotta after talking about doing it for ages and wanted to use up some of our Rainbow Chard. So while I was there I emailed Kelly to ask permission to make some Christmas Angels for my blog and on the Down to Earth forums using her tutorial and she was more than happy for me to do that.

 

What you need:

A chenille stick in colour of choice (one stick is enough for 2 angels)
1 wooden bead - the only suitable ones I could find at Spotlight were 25mm ones - 6 for $1.99) Kelly used a 14mm bead.
Felt
Yarn scraps
Embellishments such as sequins, beads etc.
Pen to paint face (I used a Sharpie)
Glue - (I had Fabric Glue in my stash so used that plus Fray Stoppa for the edges of the lace angel)

Method:

On some cardboard draw a circle with a diameter of 4 inches or approx. 10 cm. I used an old tupperware container. Then cut out the circle, fold it in half then cut along the fold. 

Check out your felt stash and choose two colours for your angel, one for the body and one for the wings and cut them out.

Make some hair for your angel by winding the yarn into 4 inch (10cm) lengths and tie this in the middle with another piece of yarn. I used longer lengths of yarn for a couple of the angels and then cut it to the length I was happy with.

Try and be artistic and draw a face on the wooden bead with a reasonably steady hand. I am no artist but tried to draw a cute little face.

Thread the chenille stick through the bead and put some glue inside it to attach it leaving enough above the bead to bend it over. Then glue on the hair. You can glue the hair at the back of the bead like Kelly did or glue it and attach it at the front if you would like a fringe and also add some glue at the back to stick some of the yarn down there as well.

After the first angel I made I put the whole angel together first before inserting the chenille stick. Just experiment and tweak it to suit yourself.

Add the embellishments you like to one of the half circles...

...as eventually you are going to fold it into a cone shape like this.

For the blue and pink angel - before folding I spread glue on the felt ...

...and then pressed the felt into the beads...

 ...so they would attach to the glue. 

The lace angel was made by gluing lace over the felt. I used Fray Stoppa on the lace edges.

 

These angels were basically an experiment but if I was making one that I wanted to keep for years I would sew the lace on. 

Once you have finished embellishing then sew the edges together making a cone and leave a small opening at the top so that you can insert the chenille stick. I discovered the hard way not to embellish at the back as it is not needed and it makes it harder to attach the wings. Don't worry too much about being too neat with your sewing as obviously I didn't :-) This will be covered by the wings.

Now put some glue into the bead hole and push the cone shape in to attach the body to the head. Just hold it upside down for a couple of minutes until the glue dries.

If you like you can cut out some wavy lines on the wings before attaching them. You could also embellish them as well if you wanted to.

Sew or glue the wings onto the back of the body, cut off any parts of the chenille stick that are protruding from the bottom of the angel and you have finished!

Aren't they cute? I hope to make some of these angels with my little granddaughters when I am visiting them in December. I hope you understand the tutorial and let me know if any part needs explaining.

Many thanks to Kelly for permission to use her tutorial. Check out her blog as she is a very talented young lady. She spins, weaves, hand dyes her yarn, cooks, sews, knits and the list goes on. She has an Etsy shop if you would like to buy some of her gorgeous hand painted yarn.

Let me know if you make some of these really cute angels as I would love to see them.