Monday, May 16, 2016

Rainbow Bead Garden Stake Project!

I had this pretty garden stake that used to have beads hanging off of it - over time, the cording they were on broke and the beads were lost.  But I still had this cool garden stake. 

It has five little hooks soldered onto it, and I thought, well, rather than get rid of it, I'll make it a SueBeads project! It was painted that flat black color, so first I painted it with a metallic spray paint. Then, I made a rainbow of baroque beads with gorgeous wispy glass rods from GG Glass.

I had a think about what I would use to hang the beads, and I decided to use beading wire and crimp beads.  So I went about gathering my supplies. I did not use my most expensive cording, nor did I use my most expensive crimp beads, as this will be outside in the weather.

I needed cutters, pliers and a crimper.  I cut five pieces of beading wire, and decided I needed to start at the end of the wire first.  I made the middle string first, as it was going to be the longest. When I put the first bead on the wire, I found that the bead hole (even though I made the bead on a 1/16" mandrel which is a small 1.5mm hole size) was too big.  So I went through my newly acquired seed beads from Bead Fest Spring and picked out some matching colors.

So this is how the first bead that went on looks.  I used matching beads so you wouldn't really see them too much. After that, I had to keep holding the wire up to the garden stake, to make sure all the beads would fit on in a pleasing manner!  I chose the beads in a random size pattern, instead of making them all the same or making them in ascending or descending order. Cuz that's the way I roll.

 This is how the first string looks.  Pretty cute, huh?
Next, I laid out the other sets of beads - not the entire rainbow spectrum of beads would fit on the stake, as it is a circle and gets smaller in length the closer to the outside the strands get, so I decided to do partial rainbows.
And here's the finished project!  It looks really pretty in the sunlight, and should last quite a long time given the beading wire is pretty strong.

I hope this little project gave you some inspiration to use your beads in ways other than jewelry!  Cuz beads belong everywhere, right?

Susan Kennedy


13 comments :

  1. Absolutely cute! Perfect for you!

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  2. Love it. What a great way to add colour to the garden
    Mona

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  3. What a pretty rainbow of beads and a great idea, too!

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  4. Brilliant! I love this idea!

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  5. I really like this!!! Pretty and perfect for the sunshine.

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  6. Susan, this is so pretty. Thanks for sharing another way to use our awesome beads.

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  7. This is absolutely fabulous! I do not have a garden stake like yours but I think I can make one from thick galvanised steel and add wire loops at the top! Will share on my blog!!

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  8. Thanks so much for the inspiration! What a lovely addition to the flower garden.
    My Best To You,
    LuAnn in Oregon
    luannkessi.blogspot.com

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  9. LOVE this!!! But if it gets wildly windy and the beads start banging into each other be sure to race outside to bring it in... it's much too pretty to only last 1 season! :-)

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  10. This is great; beads do belong everywhere!

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