Beaded Pearl Icicles

I made eleven pearl icicles from left over beads.

       As usual, I spend a bit of time going through old craft supplies in December, trying to organize them in some new fashion. However, this is somewhat useless because I have far too much stuff! 

       I did find a old bag of lovely faux pearls. These appeared to be vintage; perhaps I salvaged them from some garage sale somewhere, who knows? There weren't really enough of them to start something big so I recycled these into a handful of beaded pearl icicles for my Victorian themed tree.

Supply List:

• pearl beads, a large variety of sizes
• wire or long ornament hooks
• cotton batting 
• white glue
• needle-nose jewelry pliers

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1.  I used long ornament hooks for this ornament craft so all that I needed to do was straighten my wires out before starting. However, if you are measuring out your wire for beaded pearl icicles you may wish to do a bit of experimenting at first with the lengths. These may be as long or short as you like. The larger your tree the longer the icicles need to be in order for them to display nicely on the branches. I decided to use four and a half inch wires to string my beads on for a five foot tall tree.
2. Unravel a few cotton balls and set these aside.
3. Apply white glue to approximately an inch to an inch and a half length of the wire starting from the end. 
4. Twist, "wrap", a small bit of cotton batting around the length of the wire where you have applied the white glue. 
5. Now gingerly shape this end of the wire into a hook.
6. Bead your faux pearls onto the opposite end of the wire; selecting first, the largest bead and then the next largest and so on. 
7. After stringing your beads thus, take the needle-nose jewelry pliers and bend a loop at the tip of the icicle to prevent the beads from falling off the wire.

More links to icicle crafts:

• Crystallized Icicle Ornaments Made from Borax
• Embroidered Reverse Applique Snowflake Pincushion
• Craft Your Own Set of Spun Cotton Icicles
• Glue Gun Icicle Ornaments
• The Pearl of Great Price Chrismon