Making a Christmas Angel

By Stacey Mayer 

The coming Christmas season reminds me of the projects my mother would work on late into the night, just for Christmas. Annual sewing sessions creating pajamas were a given, as were the late night fudge making parties with all of us girls helping in the kitchen. But my favorite project was the large mosaic Christmas Angel she made, and that we later enjoyed in our home for many decades. 

About two feet by three feet tall, it was hung in the foyer of our church for the Christmas eve service, to the delight of all. With a red poinsettia bouquet in her hands, and another spray of poinsettias in her hair, she was an ambitious and colorful creation we always treasured.

Although the years have separated me from the original mosaic in our old Seattle home, my mother's Christmas Angel has never left my mind's eye. A full sized glass mosaic is perhaps overly ambitious for me right now, but perhaps I could learn to make something reminiscent of my mother's masterpiece? Barbara and Deborah at Brazos Glassworks thought that was a great idea.

I was afraid to begin, actually. I don't have a background in colored art glass - I have created stage-blasted, or "etched glass" in the past, but no fused or stained glass. But sure enough, they encouraged me to try something small, and see what I could come up with. 

I made a sketch of the angel as I remembered her, and I laid the clear glass over it. With a tweezer, I'm fitting pieces of "frit" art glass onto the sketch, and imagining what she could look like in slightly different colors and details. I'll take photos as I go, and share her with you along the way.

She's only a few inches tall, but I can already imagine her hanging near our Christmas tree, or in our new home's front window. The home-made fudge and  Christmas eve pajamas are certainly easier to re-create, but I think she'll bring a special part of my mother's creative magic to our new home in Bryan, Texas.