5 Cheap Goodwill Angels Transformed into Stunning Christmas Decor

You know those angel Christmas tree toppers everyone used in the 90s? Well, now they're lining the shelves at Goodwill and selling for just a few dollars each. So I brought five of them home and gave them a complete transformation. I repurposed and upcycled them into beautiful, unexpected, and completely unique Christmas decor. I can't wait for you to see how they turned out. I think you're really going to be surprised at how different they look. So let's get started. I gave each angel a theme based on a verse from the Bible or from a Christmas hymn. I chose the verse, Let Us Adore Him, for this first tree topper. To transform this first angel, I cut away the plastic cone that fits over the top of the tree. Once it was off, I decided to go ahead and cut off the fabric skirt that had concealed the cone so that I was just left with the angel's head, arms, and upper torso. In place of the cone, I wanted to attach a large glass light shade to represent the angel's lower body. I think this shade may have originally been part of a ceiling fan. The torso opening was the perfect size to fit over the brass attachment on the glass shade. I just used a generous amount of hot glue to hold it in place. To mimic the look of the original skirt, I cut off the fur trim from around the skirt's hem. Then I pulled out the stitching and removed any loose threads. For a more finished look, I folded the fur in half and hot glued the two sides together. Then I hot glued the first strip along the lower rim of the glass shade with the glued edge along the bottom rim of the shade. I had a little piece of fur left that was just enough to go around the brass attachment. I decided not to change her clothing. I just freshened up the ribbon by trimming the edges. I printed out five Christmas verses, one for each angel, on a piece of card stock that looks like old parchment paper, and then I tore it into strips using a special paper tearing ruler. For this angel, I hot glued the verse, Let Us Adore Him, across the front of the wreath that the angel is holding in her hands. I knew that I wanted to place a nativity scene in this cloche, and I thought it would be fun to add a small puck light inside to shine on the family. I just hot glued a magnet inside the cloche to hold the battery-operated light. Although the second angel was only $2.99, her dress and wings were really nice quality. Once again, I started the transformation by removing the lower skirt. This angel actually had two skirts, and the inner one was lightly tacked to the plastic cone with hot glue. I cut both of them off, and I cut off the layer of tulle that was under them, but this time I didn't cut off the plastic cone. The metal wings were held in place with hot glue and a screw. Although I was able to loosen the screw, it was hot glued to the fabric, so I ended up having to cut through the back of the dress to get the wings off. I just hot glued the dress back together, and you won't be able to see this seam anyway after I attach new wings. Since the theme for this angel is Thy Word is a Lamp, I wanted to decoupage book pages to the plastic cone. I didn't want to tear up a Bible, so I just used pages from an old paperback novel instead. I tore the paper into different sized pieces and applied Mod Podge sometimes to the cone and sometimes to the back of the paper, and then pressed the paper onto the cone, smoothing it out with my paintbrush. Then I sealed over the top of the paper by applying a little more Mod Podge. I just kept adding pages until the entire cone was covered. Then I cut out the titles of some songs from an old hymnal that I thrifted years ago, and then I applied the hymn titles in various spots on the skirt. I decided to leave on the red velvet over skirt and just gather it up in the front center. To unite the cone and the over skirt, I grabbed some velvet ribbon in a color that closely matched the skirt and hot glued it along the bottom rim of the cone. I knew I wanted to use a small book for the angel's wings, so I hunted through my book collection for one that was a good size, but it took a while to find one that I didn't mind sacrificing. Since the original wings had been attached with a screw, I drilled a hole through the book spine and partially attached a screw. Then I filled the hole in the doll's back over flowing with hot glue, pushed in the end of the screw, and tightened it, and it seems pretty sturdy. I added a miniature bird and book to the angel's hands. The book was a DIY from a previous video that I'll link in the description box in case you want to see how I made it. I also wanted to make a scarf or shawl using a piece of sheet music, so I tore a hymn into three strips and then decoupaged them end to end onto a piece of sheer ribbon. I applied a generous amount of Mod Podge both to the paper and to the ribbon, then I immediately arranged it on the angel to dry in place. To finish the ends, I hot glued some metallic gold ribbon around the bottom edges of the scarf. Then I decided to use an additional strip of that same ribbon along the book spine to hide the large screw head. I didn't like that the book cover was blue, so I brushed over it with dark wax, which I think gave it a much more vintage appearance. Do you think I should have cut the book cover into a wing shape? I just couldn't decide, so instead I tore the page edges to give them a feathery wing-like appearance. To help the plastic cone hold its shape and to make the angel look more high-end, I placed the angel on top of a thrifted candlestick that fit nicely inside. I chose the Bible verse, thy word is a lamp, to decoupage to the angel's skirt. The verse reminded me that I had a miniature lantern in my bin of Christmas crafting supplies. I actually had two, a red one and a black one. I pried open the eye hook on the black one so it would fit over the angel's hand. Then I hot glued on a velvet bow, some tiny pine cones, and a bit of greenery to give it a more festive look. This next angel is a ceramic figurine rather than a tree topper, and I wanted to use her completely differently. First I removed her embellishments, some small flowers, and her fabric wings and dress. My plan was to make her look like an antique relic bust, but unfortunately she broke in half at the waist, so I had to change my plans. To attach her to a base, I tried drilling a small hole in the torso to insert a small dowel rod, but it turned into a large hole, so I used the largest dowel rod I had and filled in around it with plenty of hot glue. For this angel, I chose the verse, let heaven and nature sing, so for the lower body I grabbed a thrifted terracotta pot. It was already filled with styrofoam because it had previously held faux flowers. I drilled a hole in the bottom of the pot that was about the size of the dowel rod. Then I pushed the dowel rod through the hole and into the styrofoam. I wanted the angel to appear as if she was made from the earth, so she needed to be darker. To accomplish this, I covered her with water-based antiquing wax and let it completely dry before dabbing away any excess. I did this a couple of times until I achieved a look I liked. I also filled in her arm joints with a little moss. To embellish the terracotta pot, I pulled out an IOD rub-on transfer that I had left over from last Christmas of two rabbits curled up. It adhered to the pot very easily. I didn't care for the pale orange color of the pot, so I brushed dark wax over both the pot and the transfer to give them a more aged appearance. I also lightly sanded over the transfer just so it didn't look so new. To go along with the nature theme, I decided to cover the angel's torso with pieces of fluffy reindeer moss. I had recently thrifted a small Christmas swag for two dollars and decided to use the berries and greenery from it to embellish the terracotta pot. I just pulled out individual stems and hot glued the ends under the moss. Then I realized I better attach the wings before I added too much greenery. I liked the gauzy wings, but I didn't like their bright gold color, so I completely covered them with the water-based antiquing wax. But then they looked a little too brown, so I sprayed them with some adhesive and sprinkled on a little gold glitter, which I thought created a very nice effect. The wings are very lightweight, so I just used hot glue to reattach them to the angel's back. With the wings in place, I could continue adding greenery pulled from the swag. I also glued some moss around the lower rim of the pot so that I could attach some additional greenery there. Next, I found some miniature accessories in my crafting supplies that I could use to enhance the nature theme. I glued a bird's nest to the angel's head and put a rabbit in one hand and a bird and tiny bird house in the other. I wanted to make everything look lightly dusted with snow, so I sprayed it with adhesive and first sprinkled on some iridescent glitter, and then sprinkled on a little fake snow. I know there are lots of glitter haters out there, so if you're one, you can skip this step, but I think glitter makes everything look magical. The last thing I had to do was decoupage the verse, let heaven and nature sing to the terracotta pot. I brushed a little antiquing wax over it so it blended in better with the color of the terracotta but the theme for this angel is away in a manger, so she definitely needed a more rustic look. I cut off the skirt and plastic cone and then pulled off her hat. I had to use my heat gun to loosen up the hot glue on her head because that fur trim was really attached. I also used the heat gun to soften the glue holding her wings in place, but I still ended up having to use scissors to cut them completely off. I wanted to attach the angel to an old spindle I found in my garage, but I needed to cut down the knob at the top with my miter saw so that it would fit inside the angel's torso. I just used a good amount of hot glue to hold it firmly in place. I loved the metal wings I had removed from a previous angel, but I wanted them to look more rustic, so I painted them with a couple of coats of Dixie Belle's iron paint. Once the paint was dry, I sprayed the wings with the blue patina spray, which creates this amazing verdigris effect. Before reattaching the wings, I needed to operate on the angel's overcoat. The fur trim just seemed too elegant, and so I decided I had to cut off the fur. I completely cut it off of the coat's hem and the sleeve edges, but I left some on the coat front and on her chest, but I did trim it way back so that it looked less stylish and more simple and utilitarian. To finish off the raw edges of fabric, I hot glued some Dollar Tree burlap trim along the skirt hem and sleeves, and then I glued the sleeve openings around the angel's wrist so that you couldn't see up the sleeves and see that her arms were just made from wire and a little foam. To attach the wings, I hot glued them to the back of her coat, and then I attached a screw going through the original screw hole. I went to attach a lamb to the angel to reinforce the away in a manger theme, but I was distracted by the wings. The green verdigris color just wasn't working with the brown coat, so I grabbed the Dixie Belle green patina spray that should create more of a rust effect on the iron paint, and I think it was an immediate improvement. So then I went back to gluing the ceramic lamb to the angel's bent arm. You can pick up little animals like this very cheaply by thrifting nativity sets. I removed a bucket of snowballs from a thrift store snowman figurine that I'll be upcycling in next week's video to put on the other hand. I pulled out the snowballs and filled it with wheat stalks instead, adding a little hot glue to hold them in place. I also added a little hot glue to her hand to keep the bucket from falling off. For an additional embellishment, I wrapped twine around an old key ring and hot glued it to her head for a halo, and I tied some rusty stars I found in my crafting stash to the ends of her twine belt. I needed to create a base so the spindle could stand up, so I marked the center of a wood square and drilled a hole all the way through. I also drilled a small hole in the bottom center of the spindle. Then I used a countersink drill bit on the underside so that the screw would sit just below the surface of the wood. I applied some wood glue around the hole on the top side of the wood square and then rammed the screw through the bottom of the wood and into the spindle. I painted the base white to better match the spindle and distressed it with a sanding block when the paint was dry. Then I brushed on some watered down antiquing wax. It definitely looks newer than the spindle, but that's okay because I'm going to cover most of it up. I hot glued a couple more animals from a thrifted nativity set to the wood square and then decoupaged the verse away in a manger to the bottom of the spindle. Then I decided to add some moss around the animals just to further disguise that new piece of wood. This next tree topper was the smallest of the angels and her wings and dress were pretty plain in comparison to the others, but she was going to be perfect for my next idea. I cut off her skirt and plastic cone and then grabbed a small bird cage that I had previously thrifted. I felt the butterflies on the cage gave it a summery appearance so I pulled them off with pliers. I also pulled off the metal bird at the top of the cage so that I could more easily attach the angel. There was a little piece of metal blocking the hole in the top of the bird cage and when I tried to remove it I pulled off an entire bar so I went ahead and pulled off that extra little piece of metal and then super glued the bar back in place using an accelerator spray which causes super glue to dry immediately. I looked around my craft room to find a rod that would fit in that small hole. I felt that a skinny wood dowel rod wasn't sturdy enough so I used a metal one that I broke off of a miniature sign. I filled the angel's torso with a good amount of maximum strength gorilla glue and pushed the metal rod into the center. While I let that glue dry I worked on the bird cage. To create a bird swing I wrapped a strand of black florist wire around the ends of a small stick then I used the wires that were attached to a faux bird to attach it to the stick and then I used an additional piece of wire to attach the swing to the top of the cage. Before attaching the angel I wrapped a piece of sheet moss around her waist and then hot glued Spanish moss along the bottom edge to suggest the look of a bird's nest. To attach the angel to the bird cage I filled the torso with hot glue and then pushed the metal rod through the hole in the cage. To keep the hot glue from dripping down into the cage I turned it upside down and dried it using the cold setting on my heat gun. I decided to cover the metallic ribbon around the angel's neck line with moss which just seemed more fitting for this bird inspired theme. In my mind there was really only one good option for the wings of this angel, feathers. Since the original wings were fabric it was very easy to cover them by hot gluing feathers directly to the fabric. I only had enough feathers to cover the front of the wings but I think the back still looks nice. When I went to attach the wings the hot glue must have melted the fabric and they came apart into two pieces but it wasn't a big deal. I just glued the individual wings to the angel's back. Then to enhance the bird theme I wanted to make a small nest from a little bit of grapevine and Spanish moss. If you soak the grapevine in water for a few minutes it will become much more pliable so you can shape it into a circle and then use a little florist wire to hold it in place. I hot glued both of the angel's hands to the nest so it looked like she was holding it and I found a couple of tiny eggs to glue inside. Next I used a little more grapevine to make a halo. I wrapped one end of a longer piece of wire around the halo and tried to push the other end behind the wings. I should have done this when I was first attaching the wings. Since it wouldn't go under the fabric I hot glued the wire down the center of the wings and then glued a piece of gold ribbon over it to hide the wire. Then I added a few finishing touches. I glued a bit of reindeer moss to the halo and put some Spanish moss in the floor of the birdcage and finally I added the bible verse, His eye is on the sparrow, across the bottom of the cage. I wanted to put the birdcage on a pedestal and I found this candlestick in my stash and amazingly it was the perfect size. All I needed to do was spray paint it black. I hope you enjoyed today's video and if you did you might also like this video where I created a unique Christmas village using Dollar Tree Bird Houses. Thanks so much for watching, hope to see you next week!