12/02/08

This is an adorable angel made from clay flower pots. She would be the perfect gift for any gardener in your life. You will need the following supplies and tools to make this project, all of these items can be purchased at a craft shop, or a department store with a craft section:

1 - 2 ½ inch wooden apple

4 - 2 ½ inch diameter clay pots

4 - 1 ½ inch diameter clay pots

1 - 3 inch diameter clay pot

Spanish Moss

Sheet Moss - green

2 - 3 inch diameter grapevine wreath

Small piece of raffia

3 Sunflower buttons, or wooden sunflower cutouts, painted to resemble a sunflower

Miniature bunch of silk sunflowers

Small bunch of branches, wired together for wings

Black, white and pink acrylic paints

Small liner paint brush

Hot glue gun

Floral wire

On the wooden apple you will need to paint your angel’s face. The easiest way to do this is to take a paint brush with a fairly large end, or a q-tip will work also. Simply dip the wooden end of the brush into a bit of black paint, and dot the eyes on in this manner. (Tip- for proper placement of the eyes, place them about halfway down the head.) Do the same thing with the pink paint for the cheeks. The mouth you will just need a thin black line painted on, using the liner brush. After the paint has dried, using a toothpick and a bit of white paint, you will need to make a highlight dot in one of the top corners of each eye. Just make sure that you put your highlight dot in the same corner of each eye, or you may end up with a cross eyed angel.

Making the legs- Take 2 of the 2 ½ inch clay pots, place them upside down. Glue a bit of the green sheet moss to the bottoms of these. Stack these on top of the other 2, 2 ½ inch clay pots and glue to hold them together.

Making the arms- Repeat these steps, but use the 1 ½ inch clay pots.

Body- Glue some green sheet moss to the inside rim of the 3 inch clay pot. Now glue your legs to the rim of the three inch pot (this too will be upside down). Glue the two “arms” to the sides of this 3 inch pot. Glue some sheet moss again to the neck and shoulder areas of your angel. Top off with the wooden apple “head”.

Glue a bit of Spanish moss to the top of the wooden apple for hair. On top of the hair, glue one of the grapevine wreaths to make a halo for your angel.

To the back of the angel, glue your bunch of twigs to make her wings.

Cut open the other grapevine wreath, and glue the opened wreath or swag to each of the angel's “hands”. Glue the miniature sunflower pick to one side of the swag. Also glue bits of moss to the grapevine swag.

From the raffia, tie a bow and glue this to her neck. And glue the three “buttons” down the front of the large pot on her body, placing the first one on the raffia bow.

Now give your angel a nice place to sit, these can be placed out of doors, as long as you put them in a place that is under cover, such as a porch. They will also look cute sitting with any potted plants that you may have in your home. Once your friends see these adorable Clay Pot Angels, you will more than likely have requests for many more!