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:
- Cut an 80″ (2m) length of wire.
- 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)
- 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)
- Continue to thread on beads to form the head and down to the first button, following the pattern (see fig 4)
- Onto each wire, thread four beads – one brown, one red, one cream, one brown (see fig 5)
- Continue to thread the rows on complete your gingerbread man’s body (see fig 6-9)
- 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)
- 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)
- Cut an 40″ (1.2m) length of wire
- 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
