Craft: Making Christmas Angel Ornaments

Click here to view the angel ornament tutorial.

This little angel is quite easy to make.  She is made from an old t-shirt, a wood ball, wire , yarn and an old sheer curtain.  I embellished her with two buttons for her shoes and a sparkly butterfly and those are optional.  The dress flares out because I used a piece of the t-shirt with the hem in it.  There is nothing under her dress to make it stand out more.

Here are some ways to decorate these simple angels.

Make one using peacock feathers and wire ribbon for wings.

Make one using white fabric (this was made from an old blouse) and decorative ribbon.

Make one for a Thanksgiving decoration using silk leaves.

This little angel only takes about 20 minutes to make, if that long.  If you are interested in making some angel Christmas ornaments just click here to go to the tutorial.  Angel ornament tutorial

Craft: Dragonfly and flowers collage’

Just wanted to show you a few little details about this picture so you can see that there is not any intricate work involved at all.  The flowers are just four little circles attached to each other, brushed on with acrylic paint.  The small flowers are just to fill up space, and they are nothing but dots.  The stems are dots and then some of the dots have been connected.  Just put little dots of different colors in the middle of your flowers.


This little bird was taken from a gift bag.  I’m not that great at drawing, so I looked at it and painted it onto my wood paint stick canvas.  There is absolutely no detail involved in it at all.  But if you  fear drawing it directly on your picture after you have already done so much work,  use tracing paper and trace the image you want to duplicate, then cut it out.  Use the cut out to trace around, just like we did when we were kids.



Take a close look at this dragon fly.  I got on the internet and searched for a picture of a dragonfly.  Then took a piece of paper and drew it, cut it out and used it as a pattern to cut the wings and body out of the screen wire.  The screen wire wings and body were then painted white.  I used a sharpie to make the veins on the screen.  Tack the screen wire on with small tacks.  Sew the buttons, going in and out of the holes, then glue them onto the dragonfly.

To prepare the base for your picture, use stretcher strips for the frame and paint sticks to paint the picture on.  Assemble this first, then begin creating your masterpiece.  I just sloshed some blue and then blue mixed with white to paint the background.

Here’s the finished picture…………………………………..



If you try this picture, I’d love to see it.  Have a great time sloshing paint around and creating this picture.  Happy Crafting.

Craft: Sewing on stretched canvas

You should try this!  With needle and thread try sewing on your stretched canvas instead of decoupage’.
I painted the stretched canvas solid black with acrylic paint.  This time I didn’t do a wash, I used the acrylic paint straight out of the bottle, just poured it on the canvas and painted it and get the sides while your at it.
Before the paint drys, lay your paper doily, centered on the canvas, to use as a stencil.  Once centered I used lilac, white and orange and went all around the doily dabbing with my brush, letting the colors all mix together.  Pull up the doily promptly so it won’t stick to the canvas.
Use a particular part of the doily and decorate the corners using it as a stencil.  I used orange on the corners.
With your brush, just dip it in your lilac paint (or whatever color you have chosen) and put little dots here and there all over the canvas.  I tried to stay with the design.  Do the same with a second color.
While that is drying, prepare your focal point.  Of course mine is a butterfly.  I cut this butterfly out of screen wire then put an orange wash of acrylic paint on it which made it appear rusted.  Sew a jute body on it and two small silk roses.  Using a small paint brush, put some dots of color here and there to pretty it up and make it more interesting.


Now that your canvas is completely dry, place your item (butterfly) in the center and begin sewing it on.  I used a blue thread and also sewed on some veins in the wings.  Then sew anywhere else on the canvas you’d like, I sewed around the circle and the antenna of the butterfly.
With different stitch styles you could probably really enhance this crafty collage quite a bit more with the sewing.  But I had some more ideas for another project so I didn’t sew to much.  I’ll probably have to go back to this idea another day and put more time in the sewing part of it.
I hope you enjoy this craft and can find ways to adapt it more to your style.  If you try one, I’d love to see it.

Need some supplies for this craft? 

New York Wire 33105 Fiberglass Screening, 36-Inch by 84-Inch, Charcoal Plaid PROMOABI Apple Barrel Acrylic Paint, 2-Ounce, Best Selling Colors I Canvas panels 8 x 10 inch (pack of 6)