Making the Christmas Tree Fairy: 1907-1914

THE CHRISTMAS TREE ANGEL

A Christmas tree is not complete without a Christmas angel or a Christmas fairy poised at its tip. Though such dolls can be bought, of course, it is perfectly simple, once you know how, to make them yourself at home. Besides that it is very interesting work.

To make the Christmas angel get a small doll’s head with golden hair. Then make the body as follows: procure a smooth stick about ten inches long, small enough at the top to go easily into the neck of the doll’s head. An old paint brush handle would do.

Insert the stick in the opening of the doll’s head and secure it firmly with glue and padding of cotton batting. About an inch from the point where the stick goes into the head begin to wind some flat white hat wire, a fourth of an inch wide. Measure four and one-half inches of it for an arm, bend the wire back and bring it again to the stick, wind it around to make it firm, then proceed to make the other arm in the same way.

Now carry the wire down to a point five inches from the foot of the stick, and after winding the wire very firmly with cord make a leg five inches long, bringing the wire back to the body in the same way as in making the arms. Secure it well, then cut it off.

Tear cotton batting into strips about an inch wide. Do not cut it. Begin at the hands, lay the end of the strip of cotton at what will be the wrist, one inch from the end of the bent wire, bring it over the end and fasten it with thread wound round the wrist. Then wind the strips around the wire arms. (The leg of wire and the stick that forms the leg the doll is posed upon is done in the same way.) Lay a full roll of cotton on the body and wind it with the strips. If a better finish is desired the legs and arms can then be covered with pink or flesh-colored chiffon, but an entire white effect is lovely.

Dress the angel in long flowing drapery, with a white girdle about the waist and golden tissue wings. The materials used for the draperies should be soft—old lawn, cheesecloth, or chiffon are best, because they give soft, clinging effects.

Gold tinsel or beads for the front of the costume, and a little gold tissue band on the hair complete the Christmas angel. From the hands of the angel ropes of golden tinsel or popcorn can be suspended, or it can just be mounted as if the arms were stretched out and it were ready to fly. Fasten it to the tree by the wires that are at the waist line.

The two Christmas fairies at the bottom of the page are made in exactly the same way as the angel, except that the wire leg of each is bent and almost at right angles to the main stick. The wings and dress are, of course, different also.

A drawer-like petticoat is put on very short and full first. Over this you can put on any kind of little white dress made from odd bits of lace and trimming or chiffon and ribbon. Tulle is very fairylike to use. Each fairy should have a crown of gold or silver tinsel and any spangles that you like on the dress. The wings are made of fine lace wire covered with gauze, and are sewed firmly on the back of the doll. A piece of the flat wire is fastened to the waist line, and by this wire the doll is hung to the tree. Much trouble will be saved if this wire is there when the time comes to put the doll in place. The feet are wound with gold cord, or baby ribbon. Start at the foot and carry the cord up to the knee of the leg, winding it with care to have the spaces equal, then back to the foot, where a little bow can be tied. The dolls can be dressed in crepe paper, but the wings should be transparent and delicate. After the doll is dressed and the wings firmly sewed on, bend the arms and legs to give the required action to the body. Fairies always, like angels, have golden hair, so when you buy a doll’s head for a Christmas tree fairy, buy a blond head.

Woman’s Home Companion, Volume 40, 1913

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: One might argue that the persons in Ireland or Iceland who still see the Good People would dispute the notion that fairies “always” have golden hair. And one notes that the illustrations, from the original magazine, poor as they are, show brunettes.  Mrs Daffodil feels that the angel at the head of this post is just a wee bit too modish, too middle-row-of-the-beauty-chorus, if you will. And she looks as though she is wearing a hobble skirt—although that would scarcely hamper an angel.

Instructions from 1907 on making a doll fairy add a charming suggestion for a “hovering effect.”

                                                     CHRISTMAS TREE FAIRY.

                                                Pretty Ornament for the Top of the Tree.

A pretty ornament for the crowning branch of the Christmas tree is a doll fairy representing the Spirit of Yule. Crepe paper printed in a holly design is used to make her long robes, the girdle is made of silver tinsel, and a wreath of miniature artificial holly with a star made of silver paper in the center crowns her flowing hair.

Long, graceful wings are made of wired gauze edged with silver tinsel, and a slender wand, which is wired to the right hand, is made of a length of picture wire covered with silver paper and surmounted by a silver star. If desired a silver heart, made of paper, may be wired in the left hand to signify “peace and good will.”

To keep the fairy securely in place, the apex of the tree should be stiffened with wire and the limbs of the doll fastened to it, with the same material, the robes being drawn over it so as to conceal the fastenings.

If, however, a hovering effect is desired, a wire hoop covered with silver tinsel may be affixed to the top of the tree and the fairy suspended from it by an invisible wire passed around her waist. Silver bells may also be attached to the hoop, from the top of which should radiate festoons of silver tinsel, these being looped to the lower branches.

Bisbee [AZ] Daily Review 22 December 1907: p. 13

For how to use a Christmas fairy as a holiday table decoration, see this post.

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.