Thursday, December 8, 2011

Christmas Craft Challenge 2011 - Day 8

Beaded Wreath


Ok I admit that I have been trolling the internet and Pinterest for cool Christmas Craft ideas... A LOT!!!
Along the way I have seen some cute things, some totally gorgeous things, some beautiful hand-crafted things and a whole lot of "I so need to try that" things.
Being so close to Halloween and Thanksgiving I found a lot of similar crafts but in different colour-ways depending upon the season / holiday. One thing I loved the look of was a Halloween Wreath that had been decorated in beads collected at Mardi Gras celebrations. I didn't have a supply of beaded necklaces like in the sample I saw, but I did have long strings of beaded Christmas decorations... so I saw some potential to do my own version.

  1. Start with a foam wreath.
  2. Wrap it completely in a ribbon of your choice. I choose a red sheer ribbon which had silky strips along each edge. I picked the ribbon up in a local $2 shop and I used up most of the three rolls I had.
  3. I pinned the ends of the ribbon in place with short bead pins and tried to keep the wrapping even across the entire wreath - easier said than done... this took two attempts.
  4. Then wrap the wreath in the strings of beads. I initially used 2 10m lengths of beads but this wasn't enough to cover the entire wreath, so I added a third string of beads. I had to chop about 1m off each string of beads. I also used the bead pins to hold the various ends of the bead strings in place.
  5. Decorate your wreath with tinsel, flowers, extra ribbon etc if desired.
I actually quite like the wreath plain but I have also attached a photo of the wreath with some decoration (tinsel and the leftover ribbon) in place. Which do you prefer?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like it plain says the Okie.

Gypsy said...

I like them both A LOT!!!! But I actually like the embellished one a teensy bit more than the plain.

Carrie said...

Embellished - seems to anchor it somehow.