Weeping Angel doll

Jen found a tutorial on how to make a Weeping Angel tree topper, and with Impossible Astronaut Day tomorrow, it seemed appropriate to put up Jen’s step-by-step.  The original tutorial can be found here.

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This crafting adventure started with a Barbie doll from eBay.
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Her hair was promptly chopped off.
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I took the remaining bits of hair out with a pair of tweezers. Now Barbie is bald.
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The next step was to cut off her legs. This particular doll had articulated joints, so it was easy to cut the elastic that was holding the legs on.
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The next step was to make the hair. I used an air-dry clay, easily located at any craft supply store. This enabled me to really work the clay the way I wanted to. And I kept a bowl of water nearby to keep the clay moist while working with it.
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I used a seam ripper for the line detail on the hair.
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The next step was to attach the body of the doll to a Dasani water bottle. Cut off the neck and bottom, and use packing tape to secure it in place.
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I then cut Barbie’s arms and remolded them, using the air-dry clay, into bent elbows. Next, I put a combination of paper towels and plastic bags inside the bottle, to provide stability.
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Now it’s time to make the skirt. I used sections of the air-dry clay, building up the layers until the entire bottle was covered. To get the flowing skirt effect, I took extra clay and put it on top of the base skirt, then blended the edges down.
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While waiting for the air-dry clay to dry (this takes about 24 hours with all the clay you’ll be using for the skirt), I went ahead and started work on the wings. For the wings, I used oven-bake clay, as the tutorial suggested. I used a toothpick and followed the pattern I drew, which you can download here.
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Left wing, cut out and trimmed up. I put an extra piece of clay along the top of the wing, like I did for the folds in the skirt, to give it a little more depth.
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Here are both wings, after being in the oven.
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Here’s the bun, which I made seperately. It’s all dried.
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As the skirt dried, I noticed cracks. This is because I didn’t use enough clay in those places.
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More air-dry clay to the rescue!
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Once the skirt was dry and crack-free, I started on the shirt. Using a similar technique as the skirt, I put extra clay for the folds and blousing of the top. This picture illustrates the before of the blousing.
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And this is after everything was blended together.All dry, and a closeup of the shirt. I used a toothpick to add the line for the shirt and the “bunching” at the neckline. For the fabric folds, I used the same technique I used on the skirt. I also added a thin layer of air-dry clay to Barbie’s face to help obscure her features.
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Now we’re ready for hot glue! I was a little skeptical, but the hot glue has worked beautifully. The bun and wings are hot glued on.
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All painted! I mixed black and white acrylic, with a color called “bleached sand”, which has just a hint of yellow. Once I got the base grey I wanted, I dry brushed a slightly lighter grey to give an older and weathered look. So that’s it. The plan is to put this on display somewhere, and not on top of a Christmas tree, so if someone does that, let me know how it turns out! And remember, don’t blink.

One Comment

  1. oh my gosh, I would never stop looking at my tree again.

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