A Jesse Tree St. Elizabeth

Here is our St. Elizabeth for Jessica's Jesse Tree Ornament Swap. Please tell me you think this looks like a pregnant lady and not just a fat lady wrapped in brown felt. Actually, it doesn't matter because they are in the mail on their way so there is nothing I can do about them now.

My inspiration was this beautiful one made out of Model Magic clay. I loved it but I'm not so good with sculpting and I probably couldn't have made 32 of them look as beautiful as that one. So, looking around at what I had, I came up with a peg doll version.

First, I glued a flat decorative vase stone to a blank peg doll (that's St. John the Baptist in there) and after lots of trial and error, cut out a dress shape from the felt.

I found that adding a little touch of hot glue at the chest area, helped secure the dress when I wrapped it around her. It also helped accentuate the belly (which is not what most pregnant woman want, I know). I centered the V-neck over the belly and wrapped the shape around, glueing in the back and trimming things up afterwards. The v-neck helped it look more like a dress and not like a Muumuu according to my kids. I tried to pull the felt around her belly so that she looked more pregnant, less pudgy.

The veil was a 3inch square piece of felt.

I secured it in the front with a dot of hot glue on her forehead and then secured each corner at the base of the neck in the back.

Right about here is where I would usually burn myself and leave a light layer of flesh and fingerprint behind on every doll. You're welcome! :)

This is what she looked like at that point.

I folded the veil flat behind her and then folded each side flap in and secured with more hot glue (and skin). Do those low heat glue guns actually work? Do they still burn your fingers?

Jessica asked that they be ready to hang, so I added some embroidery thread as a hanger.

I was able to use everything I already had with the exception of needing more peg dolls and brown felt. Sadly, my craft store was out of plain brown felt, so I got some embossed felt which some of my kids actually liked even better. I really liked the way she turned out. I started wondering if I could make a whole Jesse Tree out of peg dolls and felt. 

Hmmmmm.... a project for another year?