Here I will show you how you can quite easily pull together your own Christmas light Garland like the one on the left.

I hope you enjoy making your garlands.

Wealie x

What do you need?

• covered bells in silver and/or white.
• 15-20 medium coloured metal bells.
• 6mm Jute string – approx. 6 metres.

• 6mm christmas style butcher’s string – approx. 6 metres.
• One set of LED Christmas lights approx. 4 metres, with 80 bulbs and preferably battery operated.
• Approx. 15 Christmas wooden shapes – I used three different types, but you could use more or less.

Putting it together

Cut three lengths of the Jute string approximately 2 metres long. Knot the three lengths together at one end leaving about 5 cm of string above the knot and plait together. You could also substitute one of the lengths for butcher’s string for a different effect.

Leave about 5 cm of string free at the end of the plait and knot the lengths together - you should have around 1 – 1.5 metre plait length.

Attach the light furthest away from the battery pack to the beginning of the plait using the 5 cm of free string. Weave the plait over and around the lights. At the end of the plait tie the closest light to the end and then turn the lights, tie down the first light after the turn half way between the next two lights. Weave the rest of the lights in and out of the plait and lights so that they are evenly spaced and you have lights on both sides of the plait. Tie the final light to the plait using the free string at the end.

Cut a length of about 1.5 metres of the butcher’s string and tie it around the first light on the plait leaving about 10 cm of string free. Weave the string around the lights tying it around every second light until you reach the end of the plait and tie it around the final light and again leave about 10 cm of string free at the end. Cut off any excess string and knot the 10 cm ends so that they form loops for hanging the garland

Using the jute string attach one of the small coloured bells aroud every second light. In the lights without bells proceed to knot your shapes and the larger bells in sequential order.

You’ve now got your very own Christmas lights garland!

For extra colour why not incorporate some ribbons or faux berries and holly.

Where to buy the materials

If you would like to make the same garland as me you can buy all the materials I used here:

• You can buy a variety of pre-cut wood shapes on Amazon
• Buy three rolls of  the jute twine string on Amazon
• Buy the red and white butcher’s twine on Amazon
• You can buy two sets of the battery operated christmas lights on Amazon
• I bought the coloured small bells in my local Rymans stationers
• The large white and silver covered bells I bought in Waitrose, red and white versions are available to buy online

Just lately I’ve taken up crochet and I’m really enjoying it. It turned out to be a lot easier than I had originally anticipated and I’ve already made a number of items from scarves to crochet flowers and the beginnings of a granny circle blanket, though I do find following patterns a bit challenging still.  I’ve mastered the basic stitches and played around with some special stitches all of which has been great fun.   I bought myself quite a few good books for learning to crochet, learning different stitches and some lovely patterns and designs to try out.  I also used some of the great videos from crafters on YouTube and have pinned many, many great crochet designs from Pinterest, all of which you can find on my Arty Crafty pinterest board.

As a left handed person from the UK (US terms for many basic stitches are different to the UK versions) it was a bit more difficult to find good books and instructions on how to learn crochet, follow patterns, complete certain stitches, but there are a lot of good resources out there if you look.  The book I found most useful in helping me to get to grip with the basics of crocheting UK style was Crochet Unravelled: A Clear and Concise Guide to Learning Crochet which you can buy on Amazon for just £6.29.  I highly recommend this book, it had instructions for both left and right handed people and explained the basics very well and is an excellent starting point at a reasonable price.

Back to my crocheting, below are a few of my creations so far, some are completed, others are still a work in progress, but as I’m having so much fun with the crochet, it is hard to focus on just one project at a time.  To see all my crocheting projects check out my Wealie’s Crafts pinterest board.

Happy hooking!

Wealie
x

My Crochet Projects

1. Sid the Sloth purse - this started out with the intention of being a monkey purse, however as my partner Ben pointed out the purse looked more like Sid, so the ears of the monkey turned into the eyes of Sid

Sid the Sloth purse

2.  Flower motif – I made this motif using a multi coloured bamboo viscose yarn and it will be going on a scarf that I’ve made out of the same bluey-green yarn, but have not yet had a chance to block , so for now it’s just the flower to see.

Crochet Flower Motif for Scarf

3. Granny Circle Blanket – A work in progress as it is more of a dinner plate size at the moment.  I’m enjoying working with the bright and colourful cottons on this project, but envisage that this may take some time to complete.

Crochet Granny Circle - WIP

4.  Crochet Baby Hat – This was my first proper item that I created from following a pattern, which I’m still finding a little bit challenging; so I was very proud when I completed this and the fact that it did in fact look like a hat at the end of the process.  I used a pattern in the UK magazine Craftseller, but changed the motif from a flower to a star and changed the colours to blues so that it would be more boyish for my new nephew Jack, who unfortunately had grown out of it before he got it :-S  It was a great project to work on though and I was very pleased with the end result.

My first crochet baby hat

5. Crochet heart flowers - I found this pattern on the wonderful pinterest and decided to have a go.  Took me a little while to get the hang of crocheting in the different loops on the same row, but once I got into the flow it was quite an enjoyable process and I’m hoping to maybe use this design to make some kind of cushion cover or blanket.

Crochet Love Hearts

6. Crochet pansy – Making up my own patterns here for flowers was an interesting experiment that turned out quite well. I might add a bit of black as stamen detail and yellow pollen stain at the centre to make it look more realistic though.

Crochet Pansy

7. Crochet headband – Having mastered the rose effect I made up quite a few little roses while practising and decided to put them to good use as a head band, which one of my lovely friends Ashlee now has

Crochet Roses Headband

8. Rainbow crochet flower - One of the first crochet flowers that I created using a lovely rainbow bamboo viscose yarn. Haven’t decided what to do with this one. I might make it into a brooch or headband at some point.

Crochet Rainbow Flower

9. Experimenting with Chevrons – I’ve mastered chevrons in crochet, what I found most difficult was keeping the number of my stitches even; on my first attempt the number of stitches per row, increased and decreased alarmingly! This swatch is a bit too small to be a cushion, but I thought I might be able to work it into a hot water bottle cover or maybe a handbag design.

Yay I can do chevrons!

Fred the Pumpkin Dances - Copyright R.Weal 2010

This is Dylan in the Pumpkin costume that Ben and I made for him. Ben was in charge of the frame and measurements (metal work and mathematics are not my strong suit).  I handled the sewing of the fabric, adding the fine details of the face and leaves and the dubious pleasure of putting the whole thing together with my glue gun!

To make the costume took 3 square metres of orange felt, half a metre each of black and green felt, approximately 15 metres of coat hanger grade wire, a role of insulation tape, the use of a sewing machine, 9 glue gun sticks and several large chunks of my flesh when using said glue gun :-/

The result of all our hard work is Fred the pumpkin (Dylan chose his name), who is almost as wide as Dylan is tall and only just got through the doorway! This is Dylan (sorry Fred), dancing to the pumpkin rock which Ben was making up on his guitar as Dylan danced!

In addition to the pumpkin costume and the Wealie household pumpkins we also created a giant cobweb on the living room ceiling and added some home made spiders.  To make the web you need a few drawing pins and a big ball of thick black wool.  Pin the drawing pins into four equal corners of your ceiling and take a length of wool from each pin to the centre of the room and either pin them to the centre, or tie them around the light fitting (being careful of any fire hazards!).

Working from the centre out, tie a knot about 10 cms from the middle on the first of the four lengths, unwrap enough wool to make a line to the next length and again tie a knot.  Work round all the four lengths until you have a square.  Move out another 10 cm on the first length and repeat the process.  Once you’ve gone as far as possible cut your wool, lie on the floor and look up!  You’ve now got your very own home made cobweb.

A Wealie Web - Copyright R.Weal 2010

The spiders are easy to make, just cut up an egg box into the individual sections and paint each section, these become your spider’s body, so for a half dozen box you will be able to make 6 spiders. You may need to trim down the edges on some of the more modern egg boxes.

To make the legs take two standard length pipe cleaners and cut them in half, these four lengths will form your spider’s legs.  Put a glue dot in the centre of each length of pipe cleaner and glue to the inside bottom of the spider body.

Then you just fan out the legs and twist to make feet to cling to the cob web.  Finally use some more glue dots to attach a couple of googlie eyes and your spider is ready to sit on his (or her web) as in the picture above.

Anything goes with the Wealie household spiders and Dylan was in charge of choosing the colour matches and patterns for the bodies and legs.  The gallery below shows the twelve spiders created this year.  The red and purple one in the bottom corner is mine and Dylan’s favourite!

The Spider Gallery Halloween 2010 - Copyright R.Weal 2010

The last in our menagerie of Halloween creepies are the bats, which are showcased in the belfry gallery below.  Ben takes all the credit for the bats, he based the design on the pattern from some Halloween fabric that we bought.  Ben created a template on white paper, which he then cut around on the black card.  There was some interesting times had trying to suspend them properly, but they looked quite effective.  Personally I quite liked them stuck flat against the fire place and back door too!

So now you’ve got some idea of what Halloween is like in the Wealie household.  I hope you had fun making your Halloween decorations and costumes too.

Happy Halloween one and all!

Wealie x

Bats in the belfry - Copyright R.Weal 2010