I found the idea for these gorgeous things off of the blog of one of you commenters. Forgive me, I’ve lost the link. I searched and searched, but it’s lost forever. The mysterious commenter found this tutorial at Just Something I Made.
I debated with myself if it was cool to post a tutorial after Cathe Holden did hers. I’m still not certain if I’m right to do so, I tend to be cautious about respecting others work, but I did a couple of things differently and my finished project looks different enough from hers to make me think it’s worth sharing. But obviously I’m ambivalent about it. At any rate, the idea was not mine, but the way I went about it was. So…bah. Overthinking.
I started with 16 gauge beading wire, and three beads that measured about 1/2″ wide. Cut the wire to measure around 4 feet long (these measurements or totally not precise. I basically cut the wire I had into three pieces and got to work. You could cut more or less and be just fine).
Thread the beads onto the wire, and bend one end into a loop to keep the beads in place.
Using that first loop as a starting point, bend the wire around to make a coil for the beads to rest on.
Bring down one bead at a time, then bend the wire around in a full circle, then bring down the next bead, loop the wire around, and bring down the last bead. I think with the bigger beads it helps to have the wire in between them to keep things from just collapsing inward.
Then I wrapped the wire around and around and around and around. My style is always influence by midcentury design, so I loved the space age look I was getting by keeping things loose.
Of course, if I just left it looped it wouldn’t exactly stay in place, so I had to bring the wire up through a few layers at a time as I was looping so everything would stay together.
To finish it off I brought the wire to the back and made another loop so there were no sharp bits poking out.
I also made one out of copper wire and faux pearls. Then I just used a wire ornament hanger to hang it from the tree.
These look so great on the tree. It’s a nice way to bring a splash of color and sparkle to a very brown and green tree.
these are beautiful! i always think there are so many decorations to be made out of copper wire because it's so pretty. but i can never come up with any! LOVE this. your tree should be looking great!
Of course it's COOL! It's all about sharing, but thank you for your concern. Yours are fabulous and a beautiful style. I never even thought of them as ornaments!! Way to go.