Big Box Project 1 – Gingerbread Men!

Something a little different today!  With my share of the money from the Christmas sales, I bought a box of assorted kits, beads and other items from my supplier in America who I got the Christmas ornament kits from. They’d offered me a big box of unspecified items from their sale, so I thought I’d see what I got, and it was well worth it!!  There’s several posts to come, but thought I’d kick off with a beaded Gingerbread Men ornament kit.

Hope you like them!

Donna x

Beaded Gingerbread Men 

Tools Needed: Pliers, Wire Cutters, Tape Measure, Pen

Materials Needed: 84 x cream 6mm beads, 12 x black 6mm beads, 672 x brown 6mm beads, 84 x red 6mm beads, 18 x yellow 6mm beads, 18 x assorted coloured (red, cream and yellow) and shaped (flower, star and butterfly) beads, 23 yards (21m) black copper-centred wire.

Method:

1. Cut an 80″ (2m) length of wire.
2. Onto one end of the wire thread 5 brown beads, and on the other thread another 6 brown beads, bending the wire round (see fig 2)
3. Thread the end of the first piece of wire (row 1) through the second row of beads to tighten the first two rows’ formation (see fig 3)
4. Continue to thread on beads to form the head and down to the first button, following the pattern (see fig 4)
5. Onto each wire, thread four beads – one brown, one red, one cream, one brown (see fig 5)
6. Continue to thread the rows on complete your gingerbread man’s body (see fig 6-9)
7. Using the right-hand wire, thread on the first leg’s rows (see fig 10), then thread back through the rows, finishing in the centre and pass through the first 4 beads of the next leg to exit the body (see fig 11)
8. Using the left-hand wire, thread on the second wire’s rows (see fig 12-13) and back up through them to complete the leg, finishing on the outside of the leg before twisting the two wires together and cutting (fig 14-15)
9. Cut an 40″ (1.2m) length of wire
10. Leaving a 2.5″ (6.4cm) tail, wind the wire around the pen 5 or 6 times before sliding it off the pen and adding a shaped bead. Repeat this process to add a further two shaped beads (using a variation of colours and shapes), before adding a final set of curls. Thread the left-hand tail through the top row of beads on the gingerbread man’s head, before twisting the two ends together to secure (fig 17-20).

As usual, pictures to illustrate. Not the greatest ones from the instruction sheet, but done my best!

Donna x

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