Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Wire Angels

Good morning everyone. It is officially the first snow day that Denver has seen this season. There is about 2 to 3 inches and it is still coming down. It is days like these that I am super excited that I get to stay inside and not go to work. I have some more exciting new beyond the snow. I sold my first item from my Etsy shop yesterday. A woman in Pennsylvania ordered the Yoda hat that I had made. Thank you first buyer!!!!



Today I want to share with you a fun holiday craft. We will be making wire angels.

You will need:
16 or 18 gage wire. I buy mine in the framing department at the home depot it is super cheap and looks nice unlike Jewelry wire that is very expensive for this type of craft
Wire cutters
Pliers
A regular tube of chapstick

You will be working directly off the spool of wire as you make this angel so do not worry about the length of wire that you will need.

First we are going to make the body. Start by wrapping the wire around the tube of chapstick. Leave yourself about a 1.5” tail at the end of the wire.


Where the wires cross is going to be the neck of the angel. Now using three fingers as your measuring device shape the skirt. Each side and bottom of the skirt will all be approximately three fingers long.

You will be working in a figure 8 pattern. When you reach the neck again use the chapstick tube to wrap another head for the angel and then repeat making yourself another skirt, repeat again. When you are done you should have three heads and three skirts ending at the neck. Leave yourself approximately a three inch tail and cut the wire using your cutters.


Now using the tail that you just cut wrap the neck of the angel until you have no more wire. Use the pliers to help tuck in the end.

Now we are going to make the wings starting with the halo. Taking the end from the spool again wrap the wire around the chapstick tube, do not leave a long tail. Using your pliers bend the end of the wire around so it makes sort of a curly cue in the center of the halo.

Now bend the long end of the wire straight down to make the stem of the halo. This should be at a 90 degree to the halo. Leave yourself a long enough stem so that it will go past the head and to the location of the neck. This is about 2 inches.

To make the wings use 2 fingers to wrap the wire around on each side of the halo stem. Make a loop for the wings making sure that there are three wings on each side of the body.

Now that you have the wings you need to pinch them together in the middle. To do this, bend each wire individually in the center so that they will come together at the neck. Cut a 3” tail at the end of the wings. Now wrap tail around the center of the wings until the end of wire. Use the pliers to tuck in the ends and avoid future injury.

Using the short end on the body, attach the wings to the body by wrapping the wire around the center of the wings.

Now we have a completed angel. You can tie ribbon around the neck if you want to. There are a variety of things that you can do with your angel now. You can use it as a business card holder, name tag plate for holiday dinners, Christmas ornament, or wall hanging. The options are endless. Please share with me any other ideas or decorating suggestions that you might have.


Have a great snow day everyone.

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31 comments:

  1. It's in the 90's here, so no snow day for us. I love the angel, it would make pretty ornaments.

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  2. Very cute! Found you via blog hop! New Follower!

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  3. New follower,would be great if you followed back? :)

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  4. Nice blog! I'm over from the blog hop and am your newest follower. Can't imagine it snowing in October! It's 80 degrees here!

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  5. How creative! I love it! Thanks so much for linking up today!!

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  6. Cute! found you throught the blog hop im a new follower!

    Julianne
    www.sewfantastic.blogspot.com

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  7. Thanks ladies for all the great comments. I made these a little larger too for Christmas tree ornaments by using a round prescription bottle to make the head. You will have to make the body proportionate and then you can basically make the angels any size that you want. Thanks also to you new followers I will get over to your blogs shortly if I haven't already. Have a great day and come back soon.

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  8. Thanks for joining in Creative Thursday :)

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  9. I love it!! It's sooo cute!! You're very talented, I could never do something like that!! Thanks for linking it up!!

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  10. Just found you through another blog and fell in love with your angel. Very cute idea. Thanks for sharing.

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  11. Love your angel! Such a creative idea! I have a bunch of floral wire, I wonder if that would work too!

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  12. Brandi I think that floral wire would work great. Your angels will look great in Christmas green. You could even add a little red or gold bead to the bottom of the skirt to fest it up a little bit.

    Ladies - Be sure and check back on my main page for a jewelry giveaway posting. Thanks to all who have checked out my page thus far.

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  13. This is super duper impressive... wow!!

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  14. Great design. Thanks so much. I have a Tuscan kitchen with thick wooden mantel. I want to decorate very simple and with natural things. I am going to make a string of these and not cut the wire hanging in the middle but place a bead or berry on it

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  15. Parabéns!
    Muito lindo o seu anjo. Adorei sua criatividade.
    Bjs

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  16. I love the angel...had so much fun making them. Thank you.

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  17. Wow! Thanks this was so clearly explained. I really appreciate you sharing with us.

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  18. I love this! I found your tutorial from Pinterest. I made a bunch for my friend's birthday. The wire at Home Depot is sooooo cheap! I will be putting some up on my website soon ( tegansbeads.weebly.com )

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  19. Precious! :)

    /Frida
    http://fridaspeach.wordpress.com

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  20. Which type of wire do you use for this? Aluminium or the other? Thanks for a beautiful project!

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  21. I just use the cheap picture hanging wire that you can find at the hardware store. It is way cheaper for this type of project since it uses so much wire.

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  22. I saw that you written that above, but at our H. D. there are 2 different types. I bought the aluminum 18 gauge, but it is very bendable-I just wanted to be sure I'm using the correct wire. Thank you so much!

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  23. Alluminum wire is very soft because aluminum is a soft metal. The luster of it I am sure will make great angels but you will have to be careful about over working it as it will break. The wire I used is the galvanized steel wire.

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  24. Yes! I didn't have it break, but it is so soft that it sometimes takes on its own shape. I like my little aluminium angel, but I love yours much more! Thank you for taking the time to help me out. I fell in love with this project as soon as I saw it.

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  25. Glad to see your wire angels. I've made these before and attached them to a tiny box that was made out of fronts of old Christmas cards. I'd be glad to share one with you if you'd leave me an address. hawthorne8308@sbcglobal.net Marty Hawthorne

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  26. Kara,
    Thanks so much for the Angels you made for our hospital. The families of their "lost angels" will be very greatful!!! = )

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  27. Mine didn't turn out as good as yours. I'll try to add my photo to my comment ��







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  28. Can’t wait to try one!!

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