Bead Trees!

A week ago I guest posted for Newlyweds on a Budget and this is what I threw together.  Here is the tutorial:

Today I'm going to tell you about a project that was sort of a bad idea...originally.  Today I'm going to tell you how to make a Bead Tree.  The reason I say it was sort of a bad idea was because I made this last year, and the learning curve nearly killed me.  I'll explain along the way.

To begin you will need the following:

1.  A Styrofoam cone.  Now I used a smaller cone.  It says its 98 mm x 225 mm, or 3- 7/8 x 8 - 7/8 in. cone.  Last year I used the biggest on Hobby Lobby provided.  (Mistake #1 - if you're trying a new idea that just cropped up there one day, no tutorial on the matter to be found - start small.)

2.  Glue gun and glue sticks.  Lots of glue sticks.  I went through about 8 or 9 of them for this little cone.  So be prepared.  Also - don't get burned.

3.  Scissors.  These are used a little bit, but you will need to cut the beads at some point.

4.  A background color.  I used a close color to the beads I was using but you could honestly use whatever color you want.  I just didn't want white Styrofoam showing through.  You could use a spray paint to cut your painting time in half, its just the $.99 paint was more appealing than the $7.99 spray paint.

5.  A paint brush.  You'll need something to get the color on there.

6.  Christmas Bead Garlands.  **I used 2 of these!!**  If you think since it says there's 18 feet of garland that you'd have more than enough, well - you'd be wrong.  If you're going bigger with the cone - get another garland.  Luckily since Hobby Lobby has 50% off Christmas stuff, these babies were $1 each.  So it won't break the bank.

To begin:

Slap some paint on that sucker.  Yes, it is a pain to paint on Styrofoam with a paint brush, but it doesn't need to be perfect or even pretty, just remember it only shows through the beading a little bit.

Also:

Once the paint has dried, it's time to begin gluing the beads on.  Now, - mistake #2 - last year I wanted the beading to be really close together so the background didn't show through at all.  What I did was cut each bead off individually, cut down the little rope so it didn't poke out and glue on each bead individually.  This took roughly...a week.  Don't do this.  

This is what you want to do:

If you want the background to show through a lot because you, I don't know, spray painted gold glitter and want it to really pop (that would be pretty), you would keep the beads where they are and just glue and wrap.  No squishing required.  I wanted the beads close together - so:

I glued a small line and placed the beads on the glue, then I squished them next to each other and held them there until the glue started drying enough that I could take my the pressure off.  Yes, I did get a couple burns, but that's because I wasn't careful.  If you want the beads close, just keep gluing and squishing.

Eventually you'll come to the end of the first garland around here:

You really only use 1 and a half strands, and luckily the second part goes faster than the first since the cone is getting smaller in diameter.

Once you get to the top, what I did was wrap until it didn't cooperate anymore and cut one bead individually to glue in the holes left over.

And then it's done!!

Now, compared to my first attempt, this took the length of the movie Elf to wrap.  So nothing too extreme.

And it looks just as good as the first one:

**If you want the tops of the trees to be pointy: you will want to get a piece of card stock that's the same color as the background you're using, wrap it in a cone and glue the cone to the top of the Styrofoam.  You can bead over that to achieve a pointy tree.  As you can see, it wasn't my first priority...

Or maybe I didn't think about that until later.

But there you have it - Bead Trees that don't take a week to make.