Christmas Bead Ornaments

Today we'd like to share with you our bead ornaments, which are perfect to hang on the tree or share as a gift. To create them we used a selection of beads, pipe cleaners, a few bells & old buttons. The beads we used were fairly small, so if creating with younger children bigger beads may be easier to manipulate.

Minnie (3yrs) was keen to get threading straight away! Her first creation were these bells which she independently threaded onto a pipe cleaner, before asking me to secure at the ends. We discovered that this tree decoration doubles up as a neat handheld musical instrument too! :-)

For her next decoration, she chose a black pipe cleaner & threaded on foam stars with a bell. She twisted the ends together to secure & held it up proudly telling me; "It's a silent night sky!"

She then requested I make a reindeer! Oh dear was my thought! ;-) But together we made this little reindeer using a bell for his nose & blue beads for eyes. We made an oval shape using the golden wire & then just twisted red wires at the top to create the antlers. I think he looks kinda cute hanging from the tree.



Rudolf

Minnie continued threading the beads onto the wires & asked me to help her shape them into different objects.

Mini heart

Christmas Tree

Snowman

Star!

This was a great opportunity for us to create together, & for me to encourage her creativity as well as foster confidence in her own skills. Minnie selected the shape & size of each object before we made it, & soon she was bending the wires independently to create the shapes she desired.

Spinners! Great to hang from the ceiling or a shelf.

Mini spinning Christmas tree

Heart

Apple

Candy Cane

We always have time for imaginative play in our house... look at this cheeky elf in the pot of beads, apparently he's in a ball pit! (I love unexpected moments of play like these)

If you have no beads at hand, how about recycling old buttons, or jewellery & turning them into beaded ornaments. (I've found that since becoming a mum many of my necklaces/bracelets have become pulled or broken, so we now have a lovely collection of beads etc to use for crafting.)

Button wreath

Or how about making you own beads using salt dough, or clay.

These salt dough beads are fairly big, but then they were crafted by a 3yr old. We used this recipe & simply rolled small(ish) balls of dough, made a hole in the middle using a skewer, & baked in the oven for a quick result.

As you can see we left ours plain, but they're easy to brighten up with a little paint or glitter.

If you're interested in crafting your own beads, pop back tomorrow when we'll be having a go at making paper beads.

Of course plastic beaded ornaments don't have to just decorate Christmas trees, how about adding them to Christmas presents, or cards, or decorating an outdoor space with them. Minnie made these hanging decorations earlier in the year.

We loved this activity, & in a couple of days we're having a few friends around & we'll be making more bead creations together!

Perfect fun for the holidays & great for all ages to share together. This is a tradition that could well appear year after year!



I couldn't resist making a Sun Hat & Wellie Boots

If you're looking for more threading activities you might like our button flowers, mini bunting, or simple garden lanterns or why not browse our Winter/Christmas Activities.