Today's Blogmas Post is a Christmas DIY. Now I'm normally rubbish at all things crafty, my Mam is amazing at this stuff but the talent seemed to skip me by, however this quick Gemstone Tree Tutorial is super easy and I think great for people who actually aren't too artistic or creative.
I first saw these trees on a trip to Edinburgh and thought they were gorgeous, but also super expensive! Now I have my own house I thought it was a good time to try and take a leaf out of Motherears book and get my house looking pretty, she thought I could probably make one of these trees I loved so much and turns out she was right! So if you'd like to have a go yourself, keep on reading!
You Will Need:
Ruler
Gemstone Beads (I bought two necklaces off Amazon to use, the stones need to have two holes in them so you can thread them onto the wire).
Tealight Holder
Wire Cutters
Glue Gun
Decorative Gravel or extra Gemstone Beads for the base of the tree.
22 guage copper wire in your choice of colour (approx 25 feet)
Cut into 10 strips of 2 and a half feet.
Firstly you will need to measure your wire and cut it into 10 seperate 2 and a half foot lengths, this doesn't need to be exact.
Thread a bead onto your wire until it is in the middle, then bend your wire in half and begin twisting the bead roud in circles whilst keeping the wire between your fingers, this will gradually twist the wire as shown above.
Twist down about 3/4 of an inch, you will now have two wires coming off your first bead.
Next thread on asecond bead onto one of the wire edges and bend it back on itself as shown above, leaving anotehr 3/4 inch length between the bead and the base, then repeat the twisting stage.
Repeat the twisting stage on both sides of the wire.
Repeat the above stage on either side of the remaining wire, each time beding the wire back on itself, leaving apporximitely 3/4 of an inch between the bead and the centre.
Once you have added the 5 leaves to the tree you should be left with something that looks like the above picture, from here twist the two strands of wire together for another quarter of an inch.
You should have created the first branch of your tree looking something like the above picture.
Use all 10 lengths of wire to create ten different branches.
Once, you have ten branches, take two of them and start to twist the wire together where the twisted secitons end, I found it easier to group two wires together, one from each branch, and then twist. once you have 5 grouped branches you can start to work them all together to create your tree, carry on twisting and bringing in new branches and twiset down the wire.
Once all branches have been incorporated, take all of the remaining wire and twist this part into a trunk.
You'll probably be left with a few different odd lengths of wire at the end of your trunk, twist these round into a ball at the bottom of the tree, but be careful doing this as you can stab tourself a little!
Now you need your glue gun, put a blob of glue in the bottom of your tealight holder. and then press the base of your tree into it, hold for a minute or two until the glue dries and the tree is set in place.
Now you can add glue to your tealight holder and drop in either some decorative pebbles or gravel or some extra beads into the holder to finish off the tree. I went and got some samples from a dashing company (who dash your house with gravel) but in the end decided to use the same gemstone beads that I'd used for my leaves so it would all match. Drop the beads or gravel onto the glue before it hardens.
Turn your tree upside down so any loose beads will drop out, from here you can then add more glue and touch up the base of your tree with extra beads.
And that's it, you've got yourself a Homemade Gemstone Tree. I hope these instructions were easy to follow, let me know if you have any questions on this one as it's tricky to explain in text! And do let me know if you attempt this gemstone tree yourself!
