Tutorial - Spiral Beaded Christmas Tree Ornament

The first ornament I’ve made for Miss Abigail’s hope chest this year is a spiral beaded Christmas tree. The design concept is extremely simple, but I’ve used glass beads to make it more sophisticated. Here’s a tutorial in case you want to make one yourself.

Materials needed: round-tip needle-nosed pliers, 30 inches 24-gauge wire, approximately 130 green foil-lined “E” beads (6/0 seed beads), 6 red foil-lined “E” beads (6/0 seed beads), 8 crystal foil-lined “E” beads (6/0 seed beads), 17 crystal 6mm glass beads, 9 red 6mm glass beads, 6 red polka-dot 10mm glass beads.

Begin by rolling a tiny loop at one end of the wire.

String a red “E” bead first, followed by a red 6mm bead and a 10mm polka dot bead. This forms the top of the tree.

String the rest of the beads onto the wire, loosely following the pattern in the photo. The pattern could be variable. You can do whatever you want, provided you have enough beads to play around with. Just put a length of green beads between the colored accent beads, so that there is enough green to give the impression of a tree. Use the larger beads toward the end, where the curve of the spiral is larger. Also, glass beads can get a little heavy, depending on the size, so don’t include too many of these larger, heavier beads. You don't want the weight to pull the spiral out of shape. Leave a good tail on the wire, for the time being, bending it a bit, to keep the beads from falling off.

Bend the initial three beads so that they stand up, then begin coiling the wire into a spiral shape.

Continue coiling the beads, until you reach the end. Try to keep the beads close together, but you may need just a little slack in the wire to adjust for the curve.

Hold the outer rows of beads loosely in one hand and pull up on the top beads to stretch out the ornament. Then simply adjust the spiral to form a nice tree shape. Use the pliers to form another tiny loop at the end of the wire, trimming the excess wire. This loop keeps the beads in place and makes a nice finish for the end of the wire.

Finished. The tiny loop at the top makes it easy to use a regular ornament hook. Or, string gold thread or thin ribbon through the loop and tie the ends together for a hanger.

Shared on Raising Homemaker's Wednesday Link-up .