Make a Pasta Angel Ornament

Three views of my pasta angel.

Supply List:

• Bow Tie Pasta
• Macaroni Pasta
• Thumbtacks
• tiny wooden beads
• Rigatoni Pasta
• Minute Pasta or White Rice
• Hot glue gun
• white spray paint
• decorative ribbon for the hanger
• wax paper or tin foil
• medium sized cardboard box
• paper face mask

Step-by-Step Instructions:

• Hot glue a wooden bead to the top of a Rigatoni piece of pasta. The Rigatoni will act as the torso of the angel, the wooden bead will be her head.
• Glue one piece of macaroni to each side of the torso to act as arms.
• Now hot glue the inverted tack on top of the angels arms to act as the candle in a holder.
• Next, glue on a Bow Tie pasta piece between the angel's shoulder blades on the back side of her torso; this pasta is her wings.
• The last gluing step involves adding enough glue to the top and sides of the wooden bead to make the hair. Use some tiny shapes of Minute Pasta or white rice for this step.
• Let the tiny Pasta figures dry and snip off any stray glue strands that are not attractive. Hot glue leaves some of these while you work.
• Choose a warm dry place to work so that the painted pasta angels will dry quickly between coats of spray painting. Make sure that this environment is well ventilated. Read the instructions on the label of spray can carefully. Wear a disposable paper mask while you are working to limit the amount of fumes that you inhale while working.
• Line the bottom of the box where you will be spray painting the angels with wax paper or tin foil so that the painted pasta ornaments do not stick the surface in which they are lying on as they dry. 
• It is important to spray paint within the interior of a box so that the spray paint does not land upon other surfaces that you do not intend to paint during the process. 
• Turn the pasta angels and spray them lightly in layers as they dry. 
• Hot glue a fancy ribbon to the tip of the angel's head or to the back of your angel's wings.

See more versions of pasta ornaments:

• Making Christmas tree ornaments with pasta
• Kids Create Pasta Angels
• Craft a Christmas Star With Your Little Ones

Craft a Salt Clay Angel from A Mold

The above Brown Bag Mold was copyrighted in 1986 by Hill Design.

       I crafted the molded angel ornament above from salt dough. The mold was produced by "Brown Bag Cookie Art" in 1986 (Angel With Lute) This company is still producing a line of stoneware molds every year I think. Here is their online address. You can also collect Brown Bag Molds online at Ebay so it helps to know the name of the mold you are looking for at least.

       You can find the salt clay recipe that I use personally at my arteducationdaily.blog if you'd prefer to try it. There are many salt clay formulas that students can use for a Christmas ornament craft projects that will produce lovely results. I also could have used paper clay in this mold and my angel would have been lighter weight. However, paper clay is significantly more expensive than salt clay. If you use salt clay, you do need to spray the mold with cooking spray before pressing the salt clay into the mold. You must then immediately remove the molded ornament before baking it at 250 degrees for two hours. I tap the edge of my mold gently on a wooden chopping board in order to un-mold the raw salt clay. This takes a bit of practice but the results are well worth it.

       After painting my angel with acrylic paints, I then applied a generous coat of gold translucent nail enamel for the finished appearance. You do not always need to use clear varnish on your salt dough ornaments. Experiment a little, try variations and layers of enamel that you ordinarily would not try on a few test pieces before varnishing your final molded ornament!

"Emily Warford Ivey shows us how to personalize our tree with simple 

and inexpensive homemade ornaments." Amanda Warford

Crafting Seed Ornaments for The Christmas Tree

Click on picture to see more detail.

   I made these seed ornaments by tracing around cookie cutters on top of some heavy weight cardboard. Then I applied a generous amount of white glue to one side of the cardboard and  arranged all kinds of peas, beans, rice and lentils in a design that pleased me. 

   Allow the glue to dry for a few days before brushing on additional coats of Mod Podge to the surface of these ornaments to preserve them. Then cover the back side of each ornament with heavy brown paper, sandwiching a rustic looking brown cord between the the two layers.

   This ornament project is an excellent craft for very young children during the holidays. It will preoccupy them for an entire afternoon while their parents are busy in the kitchen.

More Seed Crafts from My Blogs:

• Dangling Nut Head People
• A Walnut Strawberry Ornament
• A bean and seed mosaic
• Necklaces and Garlands made from seeds
• Eggs covered with seeds and beans

More Seed Ornaments For The Birds:

• DIY Birdseed Wreaths  - artistic and useful for the birds
• Cheerio Bird Feeder - Little ones can string these for fun
• Orange Bird Feeder  - an excellent use for fruits that weren't eaten soon enough
• Ginger Bird House - Feed the birds instead of your sweet tooth!