Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Beaded Christmas Tree - branches

A long, long time ago, my mommie bought me a beaded Christmas tree kit. (Reminds me of the opening line to the song American Pie. Hee!) Yeah, so she bought this for me at Michaels (75% off, after Christmas) over a decade ago. It contained everything to make a beaded Christmas tree out of the little seed beads and floral wire. You string the seed beads on the floral wire and then twist the wire to make loops. Several to many loops make a branch. And many branches make a tree. I was young and lost interest after forming branches to make about the top third of the tree. (maybe even less than that, I don't know.)

Around Christmas last year, I was flipping through channels and passed the DIY channel and the lady was using a bead spinner to put seed beads on floral wire. The seed beads were green and I instantly thought of my long-forgotten beaded Christmas tree project. I mean, I was putting those beads on by hand one little bead at a time. It took FOREVER! Using a bead spinner was about a hundered times faster. Maybe even a million times faster. No joke. You can put an inch of beads on in about 10 seconds. So, my interest had been renewed in those five seconds and the segment continued. And the lady was making a beaded. Christmas. tree. Oh. my. gosh. It was like the heavens had opened and angels were singing. I just happened to filp by the DIY channel just at that moment. And I had not thought of this project in over a decade. Seriously! And I happened to be watching and saw the bead spinner and in moments remembered the project and how a bead spinner would be perfect but who knows where my stuff for the project is now and I will never find the directions, ever. Maybe I can figure it out or buy directions off of eBay or google it and find something. And *BAM* I'm staring at my project. Too perfect. The project instructions are at DIYnetwork.com. I also made my own bead spinner out of a small tupperware-ish container. (Not the real tupperware, but the reuseable kind you buy in the grocery store.)

So, I try and buy green seed beads at Michaels, but apparently there was some kind of green seed bead emergency somewhere and the three Michaels closest to my house were all sold out. So in February, I bought said seed beads and floral wire and was ready to make branches. I spun my spinner and *zip* filled the wire with my green seed beads and twisted and made branches. I have finished all of the branches I need now. YAY! Aren't they pretty?

Branches for beaded Christmas tree
My pretty branches.

Beaded Christmas tree
I have lots of them.

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