Beaded Wreath Ornaments

Today's #throwbackthursday is to December 2003.

Back then, I liked to make a bunch of ornaments to give to folks who had helped me through the year: the post carrier, the receptionists at the doctor's office, the UPS deliverer, etc. I made about 50 of these beaded wreath ornaments.

I learned to make the ornaments by buying a kit. The image on the left with the gold ribbon is an ornament made from the kit. Once I understood the process, I bought wire, beads and ribbon to duplicate the process.


In 2003, I hadn't done much bead work, so it was quite a learning process. I was unable to find the exact same kinds of beads that were in the kits, so I made some substitutions. All the ornaments came out very cute ... and rather elegant!

I started by cutting a 6" piece of wire. I made a small loop at one end to act as a "knot" so the beads couldn't slide off.


On the wire, I threaded 2 of the larger petal beads, then 2 small petal beads, alternating until 7 sets of each size were on the wire (28 beads). When using the clear balls, I threaded 2 larger petal beads, 1 round ball, etc until there were 21 beads on the wire.

The beads that came in the kit were petal beads in two sizes. When I went out to buy packages of beads, I couldn't find enough of the small petal beads, so I substituted the clear balls. The petal beads also come in green, and I made a few very cute green wreaths.






After threading all the beads, I formed the wire into a circle by twisting the ends of the wire together. The more I twisted, the more circular and taut the wreath became. But if you twist too much, the wire can break and you have to start over. (No need to ask how I learned that!)

I cut a 7" piece of cording. Tied it into a loop, then tied the loop to the top of the wreath where the wire was twisted together. By adding the hanging loop at this point, I was able to hide the knot in the beads and under the bow. I used some glittery crochet thread for my hanging cord.

The bow is made from a 10" piece of ribbon and was folded back and forth in an "S" shape that has 2 loops on each side. I tied a 4" piece of ribbon around the center of the loops.


(This image shows the loops tied with a wire, so that it the "S" loops are clear. When I made the ornaments, I did tie the bow with ribbon). I fiddled with the tails until they were pleasing. This gave the bow the look of 4 loops and 4 tails.


I glued the bow to the top of the wreath. Either white glue or hot glue can be used. I tried both, and found that the hot glue worked best.

To finish the wreaths, I glued three 5mm gold beads on top of the bow. I glued three 3mm beads and three 4mm beads randomly around the wreath. By tucking some of the beads into the sides and deep into the petals, it helped the wreaths look nice.

In Word, I created a little tag to add to the hanging cord. It says, "Merry Christmas 2003! Handmade by Margaret Davaz." I then used a tiny hole punch to put a hole in the right edge of the tag and slid the tag onto the hanging cord.

At the top of this page is a finished ornament that was made from the kit.


This one to the left with the green ribbon is one of the ornaments made from the beads I gathered. It uses some of the clear round beads in place of the small petal beads.





The ornaments I made from the green beads had bright red bows. Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of those. It would be cool to use two sizes of red seed beads instead of gold beads on those green wreaths. That would look like holly berries. Cute idea!

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