String & Glue Angel

I found the inspiration for this angel on Family Fun. I'll admit, I was pretty skeptical on the ability of school glue to hold together a bunch of string, but it looked too fun not to try.

What you'll need:
- string
- white school glue
- water
- styrofoam or wooden ball
- gold wire/string
- paint
- scrapbook paper

1. Mix the glue and a little bit of water in a cup. It should look more like cream than milk.

2. Make a cone out of paper and size to fit your wooden ball. I found a template here. Place on top of a water bottle for easier handling.

3. Immerse the string in the cup of glue and wrap carefully around the cone. We ended up using multiple pieces of string. Set out to dry overnight.

4. On a piece of wax paper, arrange glue-strings into a wing shape. 

 5. Curl and layer smaller cuts of string to fill in the wings.

6. Paint the angel's head as desired.

7. When the wings and body are dry, peel carefully from the wax paper and cone.

8. Hot glue everything together, adding the halo and pillow fluff hair if desired.

Now we have the perfect little topper for our playroom tree!

Some tips: I tried both watered down school glue and mod podge. As you can see the mod podge (right wing) left a lot more glue between the strings. Stick with the school glue for the wings, but if you want to brush your finished body with mod podge, it might help hold the body together better. I also ran some lines of hot glue on the inside of the body to add stability.

My two favorite "angel" books:

Great Joy
by Kate DiCamillo
Read my review.

 

The Littlest Angel
by Charles Tazewell
Read my review.