Festive Christmas Spider Tutorial!

Festive Christmas Spider Tutorial

Perhaps you've heard the Ukrainian folk tale about the Christmas Spider? It's a favorite around here, and we just love making spider ornaments for our Christmas trees. Following the popularity of our recent Halloween Spider, we thought we'd share a simple tutorial for our Festive Christmas Spider. We think he's awesome, and would make a great addition to any holiday decor!  (Clearly, you can make your spider fit any decor, simply by changing the colors of the beads.  In our instructions, you'll see our Icy Christmas Spider, featuring icy blues and whites.)

Festive Christmas Spider Kits are available at Bead World for just $3.99 this holiday season!
Call (480) 948-2323 to order. All materials are included in the kit.

Required Materials:

· 10mm round bead (head)

· 16mm round bead (rear end)

· Size 6 seed beads (2)

· 22 gauge craft wire (24 inches)

· 3 inch head pins (1)

· Size 11 Delica beads (138)

· ¼ inch bugle beads (38)

You’ll also need:

· Wire Cutters

• Round nose pliers

Instructions:

1. Cut the craft wire into leg segments: three 6 inch pieces and one 5 inch piece. Make a loop in the center of each wire segment with your round nose pliers.

2. Place the following items onto your headpin: size 6 seed bead, rear end bead, 6 inch wire, 6 inch wire, 6 inch wire, 5 inch wire, head bead, size 6 seed bead.

3. Using your wire wrapping skills, form a loop. Finish the loop and cut off any excess wire. Move the two shortest legs to the front of the spider.

4. Arrange the wires so the legs will be emerging from under the spider’s body. Thread a pattern of three Delicas and one bugle bead onto a short front leg. Use 4 bugle beads and end with 3 Delicas. Make a loop in the wire to secure the leg.



5. Carefully bend the wire to shape the leg. Repeat on the other short front leg.

6. Thread a pattern of three Delicas and one bugle bead onto a long leg. Use 5 bugle beads and end with 3 Delicas.

7. Carefully bend the wire to shape the leg. Repeat on all the other legs. The complete spider is shown on the top of the page.

Here's our version of the popular tale:

A long, long time ago, a gentle mother was busily cleaning the house for the most wonderful day of the year ... Christmas Day. Not a speck of dust was left anywhere. Even the little spiders had been banished from their cozy corner high up on the ceiling. To avoid the housewife's busy cleaning, they finally fled to the farthest corner of the forgotten attic.

Finally, it was Christmas Eve. The tree was decorated and the children delighted. But the poor spiders were frantic, for they could not see the tree, nor be present for the magic of the season. The oldest and wisest spider suggested that perhaps they could wait until everyone had gone to bed and then sneak through the crack in the door to see the wonders of the tree. The little spiders silently and carefully came down out of their attic corner and across the floor to wait in the crack on the threshold.

Pretty soon all was quiet, so the spiders quickly crept into the room. The tree towered so high that they couldn't see the ornaments on top. In fact, the little spiders' eyes were so small that they could only see one ornament at a time. They all scurried up the trunk, out along each branch, filled with a happy wonder at the glittering beauty. The spiders loved the Christmas tree. All night long, they danced in the branches, and every place they went left a fine trail of gray web. When at last they had inspected every bit of the Christmas tree, it was shrouded in the delicate gray of spider webs.

When Santa arrived, he smiled as he thought of the happy spiders seeing the tree and how much they liked it. But he also thought of how sad the little mother would be over the cobweb-covered tree. He reached out his hand and touched the lovely webs. Immediately, all the webs started to sparkle and shine turning into shimmering, sparkling silver and gold. The tree glistened in greater beauty than ever before!

According to legend, ever since this happened, people have hung tinsel on their Christmas trees. It has also become a tradition to have a special spider ornament somewhere on your Christmas tree, in honor of those spiders from so long ago. For the magic of Christmas belongs to everyone, even the tiniest spiders among us.

Merry Christmas!

UPDATE:

 You can now order Bead World kits in our online store!

Festive Christmas Spider Kit

Icy Christmas Spider Kit 

Halloween Spider Kit

www.beadworldinc.com