TUTORIAL Vintage Ornament Wreath

Supplies:

• 8mm, 6mm and 4mm round colored pearl beads (plus a few very tiny ones)
• textured ‘foil’ like beads, same sizes (Hobby Lobby brand “In Bloom")
• gold beads oval shaped about the size of a grain of rice (I cut these off an old necklace but they are sold in craft stores)
• 34 gauge brass wire and tiny gold seed beads for ornament caps and rings
• ULTRAFINE glitter, gold, silver and various colors to match the beads and cover the bead holes
• Crafter’s Pick ‘Ultimate’ glue (my favorite) put in a bottle with a tiny dispensing hole

I think it looks best when you use a variety of sizes and shapes (oval ‘rice’ beads, fluted beads). I didn’t start with finished ornaments – I made the basic wreath of plain beads then added the bead caps and rings to some of the beads after the wreath was done. This way I only put them in a few places and didn’t waste the work of making the wreath from all finished ornaments.

 

Draw a 1-1/4 inch circle on index card and place it under a sheet of wax paper

Select 12-14 beads (8mm) and see if they fit on the circle. Fill the holes with glitter to match the bead color.

Place beads around to get colors where you want them.

Glue them down. This is your first layer.

Select some smaller beads for the 2nd (right) and 3rd (left) layers.

Use a few very tiny pearls to fill in some of the bigger spaces when you're done (you'll see what I mean)

Note: some of the silver beads in pic above were metal spacers that I added glitter to. Bead spacers come in many shapes and sizes and even ridged or fluted styles that look very vintage! I also added glue & glitter to both ends of the rice shaped beads and sort of squished them to a point when they got a little dryer (to make an ornament that looks pointed on both ends).

Glue the second layer to the wax paper just inside the first layer.

Final (3rd) layer goes on top, arranging them so they look best for color, shape, etc.

Before all the glue is dry, make a few ornament rings from the wire and beads (see my Shiny Brite Tutorial, Sept. 2012). Fill in some of the bead holes with these rings.

Here is a photo of some other ornament wreaths I made in other color combinations:

Have fun making wreaths! Great way to use up your bead stash.

TUTORIAL Shiny Brite Vintage Style Christmas Ornaments

These are some ornaments I made to go into a NAME Day project - a Market Stall.  Here is how I made them:

Start with cheap-o plastic beads from Hobby Lobby.  These look sort of like crinkled foil but when you add glitter they look like glitter ornaments.  Also I used a couple of plain colored pearl beads to look like the "Shiny Brite" brand vintage ornaments.


 Ornament hangers: To make the hanger and bead cap,

Cut a piece of 34 gauge wire about 6 inches long.  With about ¾” tail, hold the tail and wrap the wire twice around the shaft of a 2 inch long T-pin (this type of pin makes a nicely scaled ring).  This will be the tiny ring of the ornament.

Now grasp both the wires with a needlenose plier.  Holding both wires about ½ inch from the pin, begin twisting the pin about 10 times.

Twist tightly right up to the pin making a tiny round circle of wire around the pin.

With wire cutters, cut the twist leaving about ½ inch of twisted wire (or a little shorter is OK – you’ll decide how short future ones need to be after you’ve made a few ornaments).  Make several of these at once to save time.
Bead caps: I made tiny bead caps from flower shaped glitter, these tiny flowers were about 4mm across when flat.  To cup them and put a hole in the center use a corsage pin and piece of thick craft foam (about ¼ inch thick).  Poke the corsage pin through the center of the flower and slide the flower up and down the pin so the hole will be big enough to put the twisted wire from the hanger through.  To paint them gold, set a few of them on a strip of double stick tape on an index card.  Use a gold paint pen to paint them.  When dry, scrape them off the tape. (On some ornaments I didn’t use the bead cap, only the seed bead and circle wire hanger.)

Assembling the Ornaments:

Plain glass with bead cap – use the prettiest beads with a design on them already so all they need is a cap and hanger.  I found some glass beads with a swirled design in gold at Hobby Lobby.  Take a hanger (twisted wire with circle at top) and thread the wire through a gold seed bead then through one of the cupped flower shaped caps.  Put a blob of super or jewelry glue on the bead hole then push the wire through.  Trim any wire extending through the other end of the hole.

ON left are textured beads.  On right are pearl bead ornaments.  Both have glitter added.

Glitter decorated – hold a pearl or other plain bead on the tip of a toothpick.  Push it on so it doesn’t turn.  Place a small amount of glitter in a small cup or tray.  With your fine point glue applicator, make fine dots all around the bead then gently touch the dots into the glitter.  For stripes or lines, similarly draw the glue in a line down from the top of the bead and dust it in the glitter.  Set the toothpicks into a paper cup to let the glitter dry then blow off excess (neat tip is to use a dry paintbrush to brush the excess glitter from the glued area.  Add bead cap and ornament hanger as instructed above.

Cover Bead Holes – use glitter in similar color to the bead to cover over the bead holes that show when ornament is done.  I noticed the textured beads have really big holes.