Mini Dreamcatchers

My sister is studying Primary School Teaching, and is currently doing some prac work teaching a 5/6 class. She wanted to do a Mother’s Day craft with the kids, specifically small dreamcatchers. I received a message asking for help! She needed ideas on materials that would not cost much as she would be supplying the components.
String, wool, twine, lace, and ribbon are all fairly easy to source from odds and ends around the house. Op Shops can also be a good place to find these cheaply. Beads, feathers and other decorations are available in discount and craft stores, if you don’t have a selection tucked away at home.

But the rings may be tricky. When I made larger ones using doileys, I sourced the rings from eBay. However, there was no time for that! And buying them from the craft store would be too expensive. So I put my thinking cap on…and came up with using bangles! You know, the thin ones that you usually would wear by the armful! A quick google found that KMart sold them cheaply, which was very handy 🙂

After my sister showed me her practice attempts, I thought it looked like fun and decided to make some too!

I thought the bangles were such pretty, bright colours that I didn’t want to cover them up. I know that traditionally the rings are wrapped, but I decided not to do that.

I looked up instructions for making dreamcatchers, but found it a little frustrating getting started. I was confused trying to follow a chart. So I found a YouTube tutorial, and pinned it to my Craft board 🙂 Watching someone actually doing it made all the difference for me!

Start with about 1 metre of whatever you are using for your ‘web’. (Or if you want to wrap your ring, do that first!) Tie a knot on the ring at the end of your string, and glue it in place. If you have wrapped the ring you probably don’t need to glue it down, but it would still be a good idea to glue the knot so it can’t come undone.

When dry, you can start looping your string around the ring. About an inch apart is pretty good spacing. Try and keep them as even as you can, but there’s no need to get out the ruler! I won’t even try to describe how to bring the string back around through the loops, just watch the video lol. But do make sure to pull the string tight as you go.

I worked the one above to finish the loops at the beginning, but I also tried finishing the loops on the ring a bit short of where I started before continuing on the next row. Both ways look perfectly fine to me.

Keep going by looping around the middle of the strand of the previous row until you reach the middle. You can add beads as you go if you want to. When you reach the middle, tie another knot to finish. Cut the string off neatly, and glue the knot to keep it from untying.

Any leftover string can be used to make the hanger, or decorate the bottom. Choose ribbon, lace, or wool to hang from the bottom as well. You can thread on more beads, or attach feathers. I threaded on a bead, glued a feather to my strand of string, then slipped the bead down to cover where the feather is attached. You can add as much or as little decoration at the bottom as you like! I kept these ones quite simple:

I gave these to some friends for Mother’s Day. Now I have to make some more! I found the stringing of the web part quick and easy to do. Gluing on the feathers was quite frustrating! I like seeing the colours of the bangles, so I’m happy to leave them unwrapped. Plus it saved time in their creation!

Here are some made by the children in my sister’s class. She said they found it easier making a star shape in their dreamcatchers. I think the mums receiving these are very lucky!

Linking up with:

The Pin Junkie, Twin Dragonfly Designs – The Handmade Hangout, Life With Lorelei – Home Matters, Shoestring Elegance – Thursday Favourite Things, Tatertots and Jello – Best Friday Features, Coffee With Us 3 – Pretty Pintastic Party, Oh My Heartsie Girl – Friday Features, Strawberry Butterscotch – Saturday Shuffle, Hello Little Home – Best of the Weekend, The SITS Girls, Saturday Sharefest, Claire Justine – Welcome to the Weekend, Mother2Mother – Sunday’s Best, Meet Our Life – Nifty Thrifty Sunday, Love of Home – Sundays at Home, My Husband Has Too Many Hobbies – Snickerdoodle Create, Bake, Make, That Recipe – Happiness is Homemade, DIY Showoff – That DIY Party, Plucky’s Second Thought – Cooking and Crafting With J&J, My Pinterventures – Merry Monday, Claire Justine – Creative Mondays, Create With Joy – Inspire Me Monday, I Should be Mopping The Floor – Inspiration Monday, DIY180 – Dishing It and Digging It,