Dolly peg angels are one of my favourite Christmas decorations which are easy to make as simple gifts with meaning and usefulness. There are endless creative options when you gather wooden pegs, quick-drying clear fabric glue, various fabric offcuts and bark (from a paper bark tree in a park near you).

The pegs above which I’ve made as Sew 341 utilise torn silk strips of fabric as bows, with the threads that peel off when you tear the fabric being randomly knotted as a clump to form hair. It is just a matter of choosing a piece of bark or silk to wrap around the peg, securing it with glue under the overlap at the back. Choose a longer piece of silk to wrap around the peg and tie it in a knot or bow to appear as ‘wings’ (if you want bigger wings, use a longer length of silk) and then glue pieces of silk or bark to the top of the peg as hair. Align the peg so that the gap is in the middle front and the peg ‘legs’ can then slip on to a Christmas tree branch.

The photos, bottom, are of the dollies I made last Christmas for my column for Smart Farmer magazine in Queensland Country Life, and the boxed angel is one I gave to a friend back in 2004 (time flies) that includes handmade paper upcycled with purple silk threads.