Making Grandma's Snowflakes

After posting my Grandma's Snowflakes on the JBS Inspiration blog, I got a couple of questions about how I made these.  It's very easy and is a great winter activity.  After all, snowflakes aren't just for Christmas!

Here goes!

1. Supplies:  A strand of costume jewelry, wire cutters, needle nose pliers, a snowflake wire form (made or bought), tape, and a non-slip surface.

My handyman (aka dh) made my wire forms for me by soldering 3 lengths of floral wire together in the middle.  Ready made forms are easily accessible now though in most craft stores and online.  A scrap piece of velveteen works well to keep the beads from rolling all over the place.

A lot of the fun in this project is picking out the jewelry to use.  If you haven't inherited any costume jewelry, look for strands at flea markets and tag sales.  Prices are usually very cheap if you go to the right places.  The best jewelry to use for this project would have different sizes or shapes of beads in multiples of at least six.  Having some tiny beads helps also as you will see.

2.  Using scissors or your wire cutters, cut the strand apart. You can separate the beads by size and shape if you want.

3.  Start threading your wire form with small beads first, threading each arm to make sure they are small enough to meet at the middle of the snowflake.  If you used larger beads at this point, they would not be able to meet at the middle, and you will be left with exposed wire in the center.

4. You now start threading each arm separately, alternating color, size, and shape as desired.

5. When you like the way one arm looks, place a piece of tape at the end of the wire to keep the beads from sliding off.

6.  Continue on with each arm, making each arm the same because snowflakes are symmetrical after all!

7. When each arm is done and taped off,  push the beads together snug on one arm, and cut the wire about 1/4 inch from its last bead.

8.  With your needle nose pliers, turn the wire end into a loop.  Turn and end the loop snugly against the last bead on the arm.  The beads will now be held  into place and you shouldn't see any exposed wire on that snowflake arm.

9. Do the same for the other 5 snowflake arms.

10. You now have "Grandma's Snowflake", ready to be hung, and help you celebrate winter!

You can find these directions as a PDF here.

thanks for stopping by!

Grandma's Snowflakes

I have a Christmas tree in my house that stays up all winter. It's a wire tree and I don't take the ornaments off until Easter when I replace them with Easter decorations.

I save this little tree for my special handmade ornaments that I like to call "Grandma's Snowflakes". My grandma gave me a box of her costume jewelry before she passed away. Much of it was unstrung with loose beads, but Grandma said, "I know you'll find something to do with it."

I started making beaded snowflakes with her jewelry many, many years ago. I've given them away to family members with a little note about Grandma. I treasure them and have so much fun making them.

I have since scoured flea markets and tag sales for old, cheap costume jewelry to make more of these. I've sold some at fairs and they've sold very well. I would never sell any made from my Grandma's jewelry of course!

Here are some pics of Grandma's snowflakes:







And speaking of snowflakes, we expected a TON of snowflakes of the ground this morning, but only awoke to a little more than a dusting. Much disappointment in our house this morning!