Angel Ornament Variations

step one

Run the pipe cleaner through your top dress bead.  Th next photo will show you what to do with the pipe cleaner, but it isn’t attached in the photo.  I did this intentionally, because it’s so much easier to see the bow shape (for construction purposes) when it isn’t attached to the ornament.

Basically, your just going to form a loop on either side and give it a twist or two to keep it in place. You aren’t actually tying a bow.  You’ll then trim your pipe cleaner and curl up the ends, giving it a butterfly shape.

Bow

This is the general shape that you’re going for.  You’ll want to make it an appropriate size for the ornament that you are attaching it to

Wings

This is what it is going to look like once you twist the pipe cleaners.  in this photo, the bottom half of the wings has yet to be trimmed and coiled up.

Beaded Angel Ornament

Finished Angel Ornament. The other thing that you can do here is bring the ends of the pipe cleaner around to the front so that they serve as arms.

The Halo on this angel was done by the first method. You can find instructions for it in the other Beaded Angel Ornament Post.

Let’s look at another Angel Ornament option

Halo for the angel ornament

This next angel ornament was made from the top down. I started with six of those little oat shaped beads that I got at the craft store, formed a loop and gave it a few good twists. Say hello to the Halo.

Add the head

I added the head a bit differently on this one. I was using fairly fine wire. Crossing the wires through the bead horizontally allowed me to really snug things up, preventing the head bead from moving around. If you want to go straight down through the head, you can first cross them through a smaller anchor bead as I did in the previous post. The link for it is two paragraphs up.

Single bead body

I actually like this style of angel ornament the best. Years ago I bought a bag of drop shaped plastic beads. They’re the sort of beads you’d see hanging from a chain under a lamp. They work well for making the angel’s body and, for an added bonus, take less time as you don’t have to do rows and rows of beads. Also, they g ive the ornament a bit more shape and I really like that.

Arms

This angel got arms, so there is a bit of cross weaving here.

I put on a round silver bead for her shoulder, two much tinier silver beads for her arms and two little flower shaped beads for her hands. I followed those up with two more arm beads and the other shoulder. You bring the beads across the front of the body. You’ll thread the wire from the other side through all of the beads, going in the opposite direction and will cross the beads through the body bead again.

beaded angel ornament

It should then look something like this.

You have options here for wings. You can follow the directions for wings in the other angel ornament post using beads, or you can add pipe cleaner wings. If you decide to go that route you can run the pipe cleaner through the dress bead, just as I did in the above photo. If you don’t have enough space to run a pipe cleaner through, don’t panic.  If you make a pipe cleaner bow like the one in the third photo of this post, you can just put one wire on either side of the center of the bow, and then twist the wires to hold it in place

Twist

This isn’t the greatest photo but I hope you can tell what’s going on here.  From this point, all you need to do is make a simple wrapped loop so that you can attach a hanger.

Instructions for making a wire wrapped loop can be found here.

It’s not very hard to do, but it may take some practice.  You can either attach a simple ornament hook or a ribbon to the loop so that you can hang your ornament on your tree.

angel

Here she is. The picture doesn’t do the ornament justice.

I like this style much more than I do the other kind. They also come together much more quickly. I’m not sure how things are for you, but the closer we get to Christmas, the less time I have to devote to fun projects.

Time is definitely money

angel 2.0

This ornament can also be made from the bottom up. You just center your arms beads on the center of the wire and then cross them through the body bead. Again, you can add which ever wing style you prefer.

Angel ornament

Once you have the wings on, you can just thread both wires wires up through a head bead, and add a halo and hoop via whichever method you prefer.

Instructions for adding a halo can be found in my other beaded angel ornament post.