Monday, October 7, 2013

New Paper Angel and Ball Ornaments

I have another new craft bug - making paper ornaments as you will see below.

Before I start explaining about the paper ornaments, I wanted to mention that I still haven't started any corn husk projects but do have a few husks drying as shown in the middle picture below. Once brown, I will have to re-moisten them to make a simple doll. If that turns out well then I have quite a few more complex ideas I want to try with corn husks. If it doesn't turn out well, I'll try a few different ways to make that first doll. This will be a work in progress as it takes a while to collect the husks and experiment.

In the top picture below I have successfully completed two sets of three paper doily angels over the weekend. I found the video on YouTube for these. The ribbon bow, ric rac sleeves and blushed cheeks (applied with a Qtip) were my idea. She just looked too plain the way they were made in the video. I omitted the halo for now. For some reason, I'm having a difficult time finding the adjustable rings to use and I'm not entirely certain I like the way they look either so at least for now these are angels without halos.

In the last picture, you can see the first (practice) angel I made along with the Christmas ball ornament made from another YouTube video. I wasn't even looking for craft videos when I ran across these last week. I made the ball from a Christmas shirt box. The instructor in that video didn't mention what she used but it looked like a Christmas box. That will get expensive really fast so I'm going to just use Christmas paper. I have seen people re-purpose Christmas cards and printer paper for these as well as make these in different shapes. The ribbon bows were my idea to complete the project. I have lots more ideas for this particular project as well. Can't wait to show you. As far as different shapes, many will have to be hand drawn and cut. We paid almost $10 for the 2.5" circle cutter at 40% off at Hobby Lobby. Hubby did try to get me to purchase a few different cutters when I purchased the circle cutter but I just think that will be expensive. I would like to have a couple of smaller circles though so will look into that sometime after a few sales.

I want to stress how important it is to be sure your craft instructions are clear. I usually have a set of instructions written out before I even begin a project. Then I tweak as I go to be sure my instructions are precise. As I mentioned above, the Christmas ball instructor didn't even mention what she used to make her ornament with. Hubby watched with me to confirm it was a box. A little more detective work proved that these can be made from any kind of paper.

As for the paper doily angel ornaments, I had to write a new set of instructions to follow. The video is about 10 minutes long so I thought I'd have the first one made in about 30 minutes. After about 2 hours of trying to figure out what she was doing each step, I made my own instructions rather than trying to watch that video again. For one thing, she says that one doily is required to make one ornament. It actually takes two doilies. She cut one wing from 1/2  doily to demonstrate how to cut them then proceeded to cut the sleeves from that same half. I was cutting two wings from 1/2 a doily (the other half is used to make the dress) and there wasn't enough left for sleeves. I watched the video for several minutes to determine that was what the problem was then got a second doily. I cut the wings from one half and the sleeves from the other half. I also made templates to use to make this easier. You wouldn't need a template if you cut only one wing out like she did though. But angels have two wings so..... after using 1/2 for the dress, 1/2 for the wings and 1/2 for the sleeves, I had 1/2 a doily left over and simply used that for another angel.

Also the doilies she used had jagged edges once the decorative edging was cut from the sleeves section and that made a nice finishing touch on her sleeves. All doilies won't have those little zigzag edges after cutting so you will need to either use scissors that will create a decorative edge for you or use ric rac like I did. I had pink readily available in 1/8" ric rac and ribbon but Christmas colors would look cute too. Those items are often 50% off at Hobby Lobby. Another thing she failed to point out is how difficult it is to thread all that yarn through the holes on that wooden bead. She demonstrated with two or three motions then pulled out a finished head. So a pair of pliers came in handy as I pulled the last few strands through the holes. Speaking of those little heads, in step two she mentions that they need to be painted flesh or pink. Oops! Fortunately I did have flesh colored paint available but I had to stop for the night so they could dry.  I also needed to lightly sand the part of the bead they laid on all night as some of the paint ran down to that area as well as flattening the paint in that area while drying. In my instructions, I have a list of supplies at the top and step one in my personal instructions explains that the beads need to be painted and dried overnight. Now I can make one in about 30 minutes.

With all that said, here are the links to those videos - balls http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKG-5pF9Q6w and angels http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uenLzSlaW-o.





Have a nice day!
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