Craft Project - How To Make Beaded Crosses Holiday Ornaments

Every year when the Christmas holiday rolls around, I love to sit down and make homemade ornaments to use on my tree, garlands, wreaths and as package toppers. This is a great project to make with older children with some adult supervision. I often make these with church youth groups, scouting troops and school groups.

You can make them any size that you desire by increasing the length of your crafting wire and by purchasing additional beads. The finished size of the ones we made, measure approximately 2" wide by 2 1/2" long.

Ornaments

Materials Needed For The Project

3" piece gold metallic craft wire

2 1/2" piece gold metallic craft wire

4" piece gold metallic thread (hanging cord)

1 package 4 mm gold metallic beads (metal or plastic)

1 package 4 mm faceted plastic beads

1 package tri-beads (plastic)

sharp scissors

12" long ruler

needle nose pliers

(optional) all-purpose liquid craft glue

When it comes to selecting beads for this project, you can use complimentary colors or exact opposites.

Step 1: Measure out the lengths that you will need from the spool of gold wire and cut off the required length. Place the shorter wire 1/3 of the way down on the longer wire and twist it around to secure it into place...to form a cross shape.

Step 2: Starting at the top, slide on a faceted round bead, a tri-bead and another round bead. Finish up with sliding on a gold metallic bead at the end. Using needle nose pliers, twist the end of the wire into a small loop to keep the beads from sliding off. Trim wire end if necessary with scissors.

You will want to repeat step 2 on the two shorter ends, leaving the bottom of the cross for the next step.

Step 3: To finish the bottom of the cross, slide on a round faceted bead, a tri-bead, another round bead, a tri-bead, a faceted bead and finally the gold metallic end bead. Twist the wire into a loop to keep the beads on the wire.

Step 4: Cut a 4" piece of gold metallic cord and thread it through the top wire loop to serve as a hanging cord for your ornament.

Tips: If you find that the beads are sliding around too much and you want them to stay in place on a permanent basic, you can squirt a small dab of glue onto the bead before threading it on the wire pieces. If you don't want to hang them on your tree, you can use suction cups and hang them up on your windows and mirrors.

Craft Project - How To Make Beaded Crosses Holiday Ornaments

Shelly Hill is a mother and grandmother in Pennsylvania who enjoys various mediums of crafting. Shelly really enjoys crocheting, knitting and scrapbooking. You can visit Shelly's Passionate About Crafting blog for free patterns and craft project ideas at http://passionateaboutcrafting.blogspot.com You can find a photo of the completed project at http://passionateaboutcrafting.blogspot.com/2009/11/beaded-cross-holiday-tree-ornaments.html

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