get crafty: pasta angel ornaments

I’m the daughter of a veteran. A veteran preschool teacher, that is. She is one. crafty. lady.  She also happens to be fearless when it comes to just going for it on crafty things. I, however, avoid being crafty because I am afraid of failure, too cheap to spend money and just generally lazy. But! My daughters, without knowing it, laid the craft smack down on me a few weeks ago. It went like this:

Girls: Mom, you’re Lali’s daughter, right?
Me: Yes, I sure am.
Girls: Mama, how come Lali is so crafty, and you’re her daughter, but you’re not crafty at all? Why don’t you ever do crafts with us like she does?
Me: *crickets*

So, I’m rolling up my sleeves and channeling my inner Martha and we’re having us an old fashioned, handmade Christmas holiday over here at Grace Cottage. We gave these angel ornaments as teacher gifts, tied to a little package of White Chocolate Nut Candy.

Here’s what you need:

Pasta: Rigatoni, Elbows and Bowties
Couscous (or tiny bird seed)
Glue gun AND craft glue
little wooden balls, 3/4 inch
thick metallic thread
metallic spray paint (I used Krylon ‘Champagne’)
small bowl
newspaper

Spread newspaper over your workspace. Use a hot glue gun to glue the ball to the top of the rigatoni. Then, hot glue two elbow noodles on the sides for arms. Pour 1/3 cup couscous in the small bowl. Cover the head with craft glue (in a hair pattern) and dip in the couscous to cover the glue. Let set on newspaper until the craft glue has mostly dried.

Next, cut a small length of thread (about 2 inches). Squirt a generous dot of hot glue on the angel’s back and press the ends of the thread in it, then press a bowtie on top. You want to place the bowtie up near the neck so she will hang upright.

The thread makes a ‘halo’ for the angel (sort of) but also gives you a spot to put a hook to hang the ornament.

Pull off any loose strings of hot glue. All that’s left to do is hit it with some spray paint! Be sure to spray from all angles, so you can get all the nooks and crannies.

Gloria in Excelsis Deo!

If you have little hands that want to ‘help’, you can have them sort through the pasta and remove cracked or broken pasta. They can also lay out little ‘sets’ of pasta for each angel in groups (one body, two arms, one bowtie) or hand you the wooden balls to glue on. They also really enjoy dipping the heads in the couscous!