Centsational Style

Season’s greetings friends! Yesterday I worked up a little DIY lighted wood bead garland while I watched a movie relaxing in my family room. I like to make garlands at Christmastime while I sit fireside, it’s how I combine creativity with relaxation.

Last year I made a paper leaf garland and the year before a gemstone garland and the year before a sparkle confetti garland. This year I combined copper LED lights with wood beads to create a simple beaded garland.

Copper wire LED string lights are available in a lot of stores that sell holiday decor but I bought my remote control battery operated strand for $10 bucks on Amazon. You can find a lot of varieties of wood beads at craft stores like Michaels but I purchased my 9/16” oval beads online. I bought 3 bags of 100 but ended up with a lot of extras, so I think you could recreate this with just two bags of 100 oval beads. Or mix up bead sizes, that would be interesting too! A light strand and wood beads are the only two supplies you really need.

The beads’ opening are large enough to slide over the copper wire and the mini light. After I unwound the entire strand, I strung the beads four at a time.

As you create the garland, and to keep the beads from sliding up and down, simply bend the copper at each light to form a T shape, this exposes the small light and also stabilizes the beads.

It doesn’t take long to create, the whole project took me about 90 minutes, the perfect length for watching a movie. :)

My strand came with a tiny remote that changes the way the lights blink when activated.

If you want to add a bit more bling, use a large circle punch and with metallic foil paper create shiny circles. Use a regular hole punch to create a smaller hole, then scissors to snip an opening on the side of that smaller hole (like a door hanger), then adhere them to the lighted bead garland.

This method is an easy simple way to embellish a set of inexpensive copper LED lights with wood beads.

P.S. The decorative birch tree shown is the one I mentioned in the first paragraph in this post.

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