This isn't the creepiest thing I've ever made, but it might be the most insidious. I purposely tried making her as cute as possible, which wasn't easy.
It was a little like, "Must. Paint. Rosy. Cheeks. Oh god it burns! Must. Keep. Going.." I wanted her to be so cute and adorable that no one would realize what she was until it was too late.
I found this tampon angel craft at tamponcrafts.com and I knew it would be the perfect gift to disturb a good friend of mine. Since this was for someone special, I wanted it to be the tamponiest tampon angel ever. I wanted it to ooze with veritable tamponiness. So everything, the wings, the hair, everything except the halo, is made from some part of a tampon. That's why mine has beauty pageant hair, those are tampon curls.
I found someone who takes tampon holiday crafting to a new level. If you think this reindeer is cute you need to go checkout the flying Christmas dragon in the nativity scene at ABluntAnalysis.Blogspot.com. I love the uniquely crafted star.
Not a do-yourselfer? There's tampon ornaments at Etsy you can purchase.
Like this Santa by DenOfDelfino.
A few things I did differently with my angel. First there is the big hair. Unless you are determined to go for full on tampon mode, it would be way easier to just buy a small bag of doll hair curls for a couple of bucks. If you have kids, you can snip off a lock or two while they're sleeping, they'll never notice. If you're that worried, get an Elf on the Shelf and leave him next to their pillow with a pair of scissors. Let that little bastard take the fall.
This is a Playtex Gentle Glide 360 taken apart. They consist of three rectangular panels as you can see. I mixed some yellow food coloring with water and fabric starch. One part starch to 3 parts water. I used it to coat the panels and let them dry flat. The center one has slits about 1/4 inch wide along one side. Do this for all of them. 1/4 inch gives you thick curls, but if you try to go thinner the fibers just fall apart.
Moisten the ends with water and spiral around toothpicks, use clips to hold them in place.This is what they look like when dry.
They can be use together or the curls can individually be cut and applied. I used a combination of both.
I don't have pictures of the skirt/body, but again a Playtex 360 was used. I used the super size. Again I took the three panels apart, mostly because I like to over complicate things, that's what I do. The panels aren't centered, the two outside ones are right on top of each other, I just didn't like the way the skirt ended up looking using the tampon as is.
So remove the string and set is aside. Lay one panel horizontal. Lay the next one on top but centered vertical, so now they make a cross. Lay the third one on top, but horizontal again. So you still have a cross, with the vertical piece sandwiched between the other two. Using a very large needle, thread the string through the center, looping around itself to secure.
I used my finger as a mold to drape the rectangles over, squeezing it a bit at the top. Now spray it with a one part starch, 3 parts water mixture to expand it. Just to moisten, not saturate. Spray on the outside and underneath. I draped it over the eraser end of a pencil to dry.
Last the wings. Again this is just for full on tampon mode, you could easily substitute felt or even cardboard. I used Tampax Pearl. I did two different sizes, a regular and a lite. I didn't know what size would look better once the angel was assembled. I ended up going with the smaller pair. There is a mesh lining that needs to be removed. Cut out a wing shape and trim off any unnecessary string. Again spray them with water and starch, not only does this make them stiffer, but it helps keep all the little fibers intact. Later on I decided to moisten the ends to give them a little curl.
To add feathers, I used the downy portion of craft feathers. Lay glue on the wings just on the area that will be covered by that downy part. You don't want to glue the shaft down, it's just nice to have it there to hold everything together. Once the downy part is glued down cut along the shaft to remove it. Do this a few more times until the wings are covered. After that side is dry, do the other side. Once they are completely dry trim as needed.
Then assemble per the original instructions. Here's what she looks like from the back.
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