Pasta Angel Christmas Ornaments

We saw these adorable Angel Ornaments made out of pasta on a Christmas tree at our local community center and wanted to make them at home.

This is a craft for older children primarily because you are better off using a glue gun. My eight and six year old kids were very excited to have (supervised) use of the hot glue gun. If you want to try with another fast-drying glue or pre-glue the bodies for the children to paint, you could do it with younger kids.

The ones at the community center were entirely painted white, had tiny pasta for hair, gold-tipped robes and wings, and some carried song books or other objects. We decided to leave the beads the natural wood color, use permanent marker for hair, skip the gold, and use only star beads.

Materials (per angel):

• rigatoni pasta (body)
• bow-tie/farfalle pasta (wings)
• 2 elbow macaroni (arms)
• wagon wheel pasta (optional – for collar or to extend the length of the body)
• permanent marker (black, gold, etc.)
• gold chenille stem/pipe cleaner
• star bead or other object for the angel to hold (optional)
• string
• fast-drying glue or hot glue gun

Directions:

1. Assemble the pasta bodies by gluing together rigatoni pasta (body), bow-tie/farfalle pasta (wings), and elbow macaroni (arms). You can also use a wagon wheel pasta to give a collar. Our wagon wheels were the same diameter as our rigatoni so we just used them to add some length to the robes.

2. While you have the glue gun out, insert your string or hook into the top of the bead and add some glue.

3. If you are painting just the bodies white, paint those now and allow them to dry. If you are painting the heads white as well, you can glue them to the bodies, first.

4. Use permanent marker to draw faces on the angels. You could also use marker to create different skin tones on the angels.

5. Create a halo from a gold chenille stem/pipe cleaner.

6. Glue the halo to the top of the bead and the bead/head to the body.

7. Glue on a star bead or another object for the angel to hold.

Educational Connections:

• Religion / Culture: Learn about the role angels have played in Christianity and in other cultures. In what ways are angels associated with Christmas?
• Art: Find and explore representations of angels in art. The earliest angels were not depicted with wings. Why did Christian artists later add wings? Why are angels often shown with halos? Why did Western artists shift from the portrayal of angels as adults to showing angels as small, chubby children. Older kids may wish to explore some of the theories about the facial expressions of these singing angels on the Ghent altarpiece.