Christmas Gift for my Sister

This year my sister and I decided to have a hand-made Christmas for each other. When we were younger, and had too much disposable income, I used to buy my sister a designer Bob Mackie Barbie each year for Christmas. So my thought was to design my own "fancy" Barbie, using paper of course, for her hand-made gift. She eventually became a Barbie Angel Tree Top.

Her skirt was created using paper from CTMH's Mistletoe Collection. I scored the top half of the width of several 12" strips of paper every 1/4". Then created a pleated fold, over and over, adding length until each ring was wide enough. The top tier is 2", then 2 1/2", 3", 3 1/2", and finally 4". I sewed each ring of pleates onto a piece of cardstock, which was cut into a circle and adhered into a cone shape.

Barbie's bodice was created by wrapping CTMH Colonial White Lace Ribbon around her body.

The belt is a piece of CTMH Cranberry Grosgrain Ribbon topped off with a found button placed in the center of a paper rose (CTMH Cranberry Cardstock). The paper rose was created by cutting a 2" circle into a spiral (click here for Tracey Mason's fabulous tutorial on this paper rose technique), distressing 1 edge, and rolling it around the button.

Barbie's halo was created using another piece of lace ribbon. Then I created a baker's dozen spiral roses, each from a 1" circle and adhered them to the ribbon using Liquid Glass.

Her wings were cut from 8 pieces of CTMH Colonial White Cardstock using the Cricut Expression and the Accent Essentials cartridge. I used 4 different styles of the same image, cut twice (one flipped), at 11". Then layered them together on each side. And used 2 fleur de lis, cut at 5", adhered together to create a backbone to adhere the wings together. To attach the wings to Barbie, I placed a dozen eyelets down the center "bone" of the wings. Then I wrapped them onto the Barbie using the same lace ribbon, like a corset. After the wings were attached, I took the smaller inside pieces from the wings and positioned them over the eyelets to cover them up. Once everything was done, I went over the front of the wings with Liquid Glass to adhere cranberry colored mini glass beads (seed beads) to decorate the wings.

The back of the Barbie:

Have a very Merry Christmas!
Jen Lee