I have been beading obsessed over the holidays- partly since it is one of the only crafty things that I specifically brought home with me, but also because the holidays always seem to draw me toward sparkly and pretty things- let’s be honest that is all year round.

So I thought I would share my favs with you- starting with my absolute favourite, which is this spider bracelet:

The only spider that I will allow on my hand, as I am a mild arachnophobe.

It was a little tricky to make- but since I know that the folk of the internet are very crafty, here is how I did it- if you are in a DIY kinda mood-

So first I picked my beads that I wanted for the head and the big bulbous body- I freak myself out thinking about that..

And put them on a headpin, with a little end bead, leaving some space between them to attach the legs, then I cut the headpin to size and folded over the end to secure it.

Then pick out what you want for your legs: try to make them so that they are fine at the tips, then go to a small join, slim again, then a bigger joint bead, then slim down again so that they can attach to the body really close together. Here are three of the legs laid out. – Also they will all be ending in a jump ring so they can attach to the chain around the back.

Then, what I did, was string them all together on a very fine continuous wire. So I started the wire by going through the large body bead (with the loose end sticking out the back to be wrapped around the head pin and then trapped under the body bead to be secured). Then I strung the beads for the first leg- wrapping the wire around the jump ring, then going back through all the beads, leaving the wire back at the headpin, wrapping it around a couple of times before doing the next leg.

I’m very sorry if this is confusing, it was hard to take descriptive pictures, and I feel like I am being a bit long winded with my explanation- but alas, what can you do?

So once you have done all eight legs (OMG why do spiders have to have so many legs) then you are going to want to attach the chains to make it into a bracelet. So you will want to measure your wrist, then measure across your spider- to find out how much chain you will need to make it around the back of your wrist, of course leaving a little extra so that you can comfortable move your hand.

So when you have these measurements- cut three pieces of equal length chain (for each side), attaching all together at one end to a lobster clasp, and conversely on the other side converging to a ring on which you will clasp your lobster clasp… – although you could use any clasp/closure type that you want for this- Then you will connect the other end of those chains to the jump rings at the end of the bottom three legs from one side, doing the same to the other side with the other half of chains.

  Then once you have that done, and you secure it around your wrist- you will want to stretch the remaining two front legs up your hand, then measure a length of chain that (with wiggle room) reaches from one leg, around your ring and middle finger and to the other front leg.

You should end up with this:

Make sure that you leave a fair amount of extra chain for the one going around your fingers, because this distance will fluctuate a lot as you open and close your hand- and you don’t want to put too much strain on the poor guys arms!

Also- if you have any questions about how to make this or if anything was unclear feel free to ask away!

Meanwhile, as I was toiling away at my little spider friend, my sister was busy at work making gorgeous things like:

and

Overall I would say that it was a very productive afternoon of beading!!

Hope you all had creative holidays and that you are finding ways of keeping creative in the busy New Year!!

xo erin