Salaric

To make this doily angel I used one paper doily (I got a packet of 74 from the £1 shop), one large white pom pom, one silver metallic pipe cleaner, two medium goggly eyes, one white fluffy pipe cleaner, one piece of red foam sheet, yellow felt, sellotape, scissors and PVA craft glue.

I cut the doily in half and with one half made a cone, which I fixed with sellotape low down so that there was an opening at the top. This made the body of the angel. I then used sellotape to fix the other half of the doily on as wings. This was a bit of a mistake as I should have waited until after I had attached the halo etc. Double-sided tape would be ideal for this sort of thing but as I never have any what I do is I make a loop out of sellotape with the sticky part facing outwards – this works really well for me.

For the angel’s head I took a large white pom pom and cut a slit into it using the scissors, then I squidged some PVA glue into it and pushed the white fluffy pipe cleaner into the glue filled hole. What you should do here is wait for the glue to dry before carrying on, but I cut a mouth from some red foam sheeting I had and then glued it and the eyes onto the white pom pom.

I then cut out some hair from the yellow felt; this was a bit tricky and I found that adding a fringe meant the hair fitted the globe shape of the head much better. I also had to fold and glue a ‘pleat’ or flap at the back of the hair in order to make it fit. I then glued this with some difficulty onto the head. I had to use clothes pegs as ‘clamps’ to hold the hair in place whilst it dried. I think that I would have been better off making the hair out of wool or string in hindsight.

I then took the silver pipe cleaner and bent it into a hoop, making sure I had about 2cm worth of spare one end, and the rest of the pipe cleaner spare at the other end so that I could twist the two ends together. I then used the long tail of pipe cleaner coming from the hoop to attach the halo to the white pipe cleaner by twisting it around. This was not very elegant but as I’d already stuck the wings on there wasn’t a lot I could do. I think it would have looked a lot better if I’d been able to attach the halo under where the wings attached at the back.

I then slid the head on a pipe cleaner into the hole at the top of the angel’s body, where I discovered the head was too heavy and kept flopping forward. To solve this, I stuck the white pipe cleaner to the front of the angel’s ‘dress’ (on the inside of course!).

I think the lacy bit around the edge of the doily worked really well for the wings and smock; I also think that this technique could be used to make choir boys and peace doves. I’m sure there are a miriad of other things I could make with them as well.

If I had had a pink or beige pom pom I would have probably used that instead of the white pom pom, as it was just too ghostly-looking for me to be entirely happy with, but I think it’s just get-away-with-able because it’s an angel and not a choir boy.

These candy canes were really easy to make and I think quite effective.

I used one red fluffy pipe cleaner and one white fluffy pipe cleaner.

I twisted them together to get the classical red and white striped look of a candy cane.

I then cut the resulting twist into four and bent them into little hooks.

I made this pom pom Father Christmas in an effort to show my scouts what Christmassy things they could make with various craft bits and pieces.

I used: one large red pom pom, one slightly smaller pom pom, two small black pom poms, two small white pom poms, a tiny white pom pom and a medium white pom pom, a thick black pipe cleaner, medium thickness white pipe cleaner, one thin red pipe cleaner, a red metallic sparkly pipe cleaner and two self adhesive googly eyes. I also used PVA craft glue and a pair of scissors (as I chop the pipe cleaners with them, the scissors need to be sturdy and not be good dress-making scissors, as it will blunt them).

(in case you where wondering about the hand in amoungst the santa bits – that would be my two year old ‘helping’)

For his body I stuck the large red pom pom and the slightly smaller red pom pom together> I then stuck the medium white pom pom onto the slightly smaller red one as his head. I then made the mistake of gluing his arms on around the waistline (ie where the large red pompom and the slightly smaller one met).

I stuck the two goggly eyes onto the face and then cut a small 5mm length of the thin red pipe cleaner and curved it into a smile shape and stuck that onto Santa’s face. I left the whole lot to dry for a while. I then decided that he needed a black belt, so I cut a 10cm length of the thick black pipe cleaner and stuck it on around the join between the two red pompoms. This was when I discovered it had been a mistake to glue to hands on, as the belt needed to go underneath them. I had to thread it through and as a result, I don’t feel it was as neat as it could have been. That done, I thought that he was still missing something vital so cut a short piece of white pipe cleaner (approximatly 2.5cm) and stuck that down the centre of his chest as fur trimming of his coat.

For Santa’s hat I cut a third off a red sparkly pipe cleaner and twisted it into a conical spiral (a spiral that gets smaller as it goes up). I then cut a small hole in the tiny white pom pom, which I filled with PVA glue and stuck the end of the pipe cleaner in. I then left it to dry for a while.

I then glued the hat on Santa’s head. He looked almost right but he needed boots, so I glued on the two small black pom poms as feet.

I think this would have worked better with a larger range of pom poms, such as pink ones for the face and hands, meaning that I could have done white trimming on the hat and ‘sleeves’ of the coat.

My friend Carina has won the runners up prize for the UCL grad schools ‘Research Images as Art/Art Images as Research’ competition. The pictures were all on display in UCL and were pleasant to walk around – some of them were stunning but a lot I felt were a bit contrived.

Carina had four lovely images made into one of the black lava structures she had observed on one of her field trips – she does volcanic hazards. I felt really happy as I had been one of the people she consulted as to what images to submit!

The website unfortunately still only has 2007’s winners on it but they are worth a look!