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.