Angels We Have Heard On High!

My friend and I were finally able to do our Christmas craft exchange. I always love seeing our different takes on the craft for the year. This time we chose Christmas Angel tree toppers and as always it was a super fun project and really put me in the Christmas mood.

There are a number of different ways to do this. I used a few different tutorials to get me started and give me some ideas. If you're interested in this project some good places to start are with a few youtube videos that walk you through the process. I liked this one from Carly Sunshine Crafts and this one from Mi Cottage Crafts. You can find the porcelain angel faces and hands on Etsy. The cone I used is available on Amazon. My friend actually found a pre-lit plastic cone that she was able to use for the base.

I started with decoupaging a little message onto the cone for my friend.

I'll say that if you use the paper mâché cone, it might be a good idea to paint it white as it does show through a bit through a white satin or other fabric. As I ended up layering my fabrics it wasn't too much of a problem.

My friend is Italian so my "vision" was to come up with a design that celebrated some Italian aspects of Christmas. I came up with a nod to the feast of the seven fishes and a ribbon banner reading "Buon Natale".

I didn't do much sewing. It was mainly draping and then hot gluing fabric in place. The only sewing I really did was to embroider the banner and then some fish designs on the back of one of the fabrics.

I loved this angel porcelain doll head I found - she looks like a botticelli angel!

I layered a green silk on top of the white that I had embroidered with fish. I'll have to upload my sketch as I included some italian words in the design, but it doesn't show up too well.

I added some additional gold silk over all of it and hope it looks very angelic!

My friend is an avid thrift store aficionado and estate sale pro. Her take on the tree top angel utilized tons of vintage costume jewelry that she's collected over the years. The angel she made sparkles and shines even without being lit up.