Treetop Angel

25/11/2010 by UKMA 12 Comments

This is harking back a fair few years – at least 10 – and I’ve certainly shared it on UKS before, but it when I saw Carmen’s post on It’s a Creative World, and her comment on my WOYWW, it felt like a good time to share it again. I love Carmen’s angels – it would have been fab to have a whole set of family angels when we were all a bit younger (and dare I say thinner?)

This is not a very good photo, but I hope you will get the idea – I took this photo (in 2001!) of the angel on a layout, and I don’t have a good photo – that I can find anyway –  of just the angel standing free.

UPDATE: Now that we have dragged all the stuff out of the garage and set up the tree, I can share a much better photo of the angel! As you can see, it looks great for being 12 years old and getting dragged out, packed away, and dragged out again year after year!

Here is what I did to make my customized treetop angel:

1.  Take a photo of your child.  DD was in just  knickers so there was no distracting clothing to cover up.

2.  Enlarge the photo to whatever size you think appropriate.  This was done waaaay before digital photography, so I took the photo then took it to the copy centre and had the image enlarged to about 10 inches.  Today I would have probably printed it at home on photo paper.

3.  Cut out the figure. Laminate it and cut out leaving a thin border so the lamination stays closed.

4. Dress the figure.  The way I did it was to cut out a duplicate of the body and use it as a pattern for the “body suit” which I cut out of sticky-backed glittery vinyl.  I know you can get this from Hobby Craft, their own brand. I added a little silver braid at the neckline, just to smarten it up.

5. To make it a “tree topper” I fashioned a cone shape from a piece of acetate (I think it was actually a laser printer transparency) and glued it to the BACK of the figure, before adding the skirt. A covered kitchen roll tube would also work – you just need something to allow you to put it on the top of the tree.

6. I hot glued the wings to the back and twisted a little starry halo from wire garland and left a straight bit off the circle.  I hot glued this to the back of the head.

7.  I made the shimmery skirt by cutting a piece of sheer, starry fabric  to the length I needed for my figure then sewed on a little edging to the bottom and then turned over the top edge, stitched it down and gathered it to fit.  I sewed up the seam in the back then hot glued it to the figure, OVER the acetate cone, adding the silver braid over the join.

And there you have it!  A very sweet little personalized tree topper.  I had always intended to take a photo of DS and turn him into a Nutcracker or Toy Soldier, to minimize any potential sibling rivalry, but once it was clear he didn’t really care (and actually disliked the idea)  I gave it up.

On years DD kicks up a fuss and insists that the tree needs a star on the top, the cone allows me to stand the angel up on the mantle and still have it on show.