| Beaded Candy Canes |
 |
These tiny candy canes have a multitude of uses. Make earrings, link them up for a festive necklace, or decorate a miniature tree! Once you get the hang of it, you should be able to whip up a pair of them in an hour and a half or so.
What You'll Need:
- Size 14 hex beads in red and white
- One 2 inch paper clip for each candy cane.
I like the kind that have a colored plastic coating. - Size A Nymo
- Size 13 beading needle
- Wire Cutters
Take your paper clip and pull the end of the large outer loop out about an inch. Then bend the inner loop down and snip it off with your wire cutters. Pick up one red bead and go through it several times to secure it. Pick up 3 more red beads and 3 white ones to begin your Spiral Rope Chain. Go up through through the 4 red beads to make a loop. Insert the straight end of the paper clip into the loop. Position the loop so that the bead your thread is coming out of is at the back of the paper clip and the red core beads are on the left.
Repeat From Here
Pick up one red core bead and three white outside beads. (The white beads are shown as green in the diagrams.) Bring your thread around the right-hand side to the front. Thread your needle up through the top 3 red core beads.
Go up through the red core bead you just added.
Repeat from where it says Repeat From Here, until you have a total of 30 sets of 3 white outside beads.
Go through the final red bead several times to secure. Try to hide the thread on the inside of the loop if possible.
Push the tube up and around the curve of the paper clip part way. Bend the paper clip back into it's original position to achieve a candy cane shape. Take your wire clippers and snip off the ends of the clip as close to the end of the beadwork as possible. Take care not to snip any beads or thread while your at it!
Now you will close up the ends by adding two more white beads and attaching them to the beads on either side. Pick up two white beads and go down and to the left through the 4th red bead down from the one your thread is coming out of. Continue up through the next red bead. Then go down through the second of the two white beads you just added. Then go up through the red bead you left and on up through the next red bead. Go down through the first of the two white beads you added and back up through the white bead you left. Go down through the top white bead once more, and up through the white bead to the right of it. Then go back down through the first white bead and on down through the second. Then go up through the white bead to the right of that one.
All this sometimes causes a gap to form between the final row of three white beads and the row immediately preceding it. Attach the center beads of each row to each other in the same manner as you attached the last two white beads to eliminate this problem. Weave your thread to the other end of your new candy cane and close it the same way. Weave both thread ends into the work to secure and hide them and you are done! :-)
To make earrings, weave up to the top of the candy cane and pick up two beads, your earring wire, and two more beads. Then weave back into the work through the bead next to the one you left. Make several circuits through this loop to strengthen then weave back into the work to secure.
|
Previous Features |