Topiary from beads: ideas and master classes. New Year's topiary

2024 Author: Sierra Becker | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-26 03:35

Do-it-yourself beaded topiary for the New Year is a beautiful and unique gift for relatives and friends. It is practical, as it will not fade or crumble, remaining a bright and elegant decoration of the interior. Unlike a live Christmas tree, a beaded tree will last for many years and take up little space, creating a sense of celebration. Such a gift will keep warm memories and will be associated with the person who gave it.

How to choose beads for New Year's topiary

When choosing a material for wood, it is not necessary to focus on expensive brands. Any material will do. It may well be uneven and slightly different in shades, because real live Christmas trees do not look monotonous, and their branches are the same. For a beaded topiary, remnants from other crafts are also suitable as a material. By mixing them together, you can get smooth transitions, which will make the branches look more natural.

How to choose the shape of the topiary

At the first stage of work, you need to decide what kind of Christmas tree it will be. Usually, the topiary is made in the form of a Christmas tree or a ball. Twigs are woven using the coral technique with needles or loops. You can combine different options or come up with your own. New Year's topiary is also an ordinary tree made of white beads. If you decorate it with large beads resembling balls or berries, you will get an unusual winter composition.

Gift ideas

Beaded tree can be supplemented with various decorative elements. Before you make a beaded topiary, you should consider the composition of the future craft. You can choose the form, focusing on your taste or the wishes of the person to whom the gift is intended. Round topiaries are usually quite large and take up a lot of space, much more than miniature trees. To assemble them, you will need a large number of branches so that the crown looks quite lush and dense. The basis can be a foam ball or papier-mâché. For weaving, you need a wire with a thickness of 0.3 mm, and for the trunk - 1.5 mm. You can decorate the finished tree with green or brown floral tape. Such a topiary is often placed on the site, surrounded by additional accessories, such as miniature wire benches or snow-covered lanterns.

Required materials for creating a topiary

Trees with a rounded crown most oftenare placed in ordinary flower pots or cups. To fix them, you will need the container itself and a gypsum mortar. The trunk of such a topiary can be made from ordinary barbecue or sushi sticks. Then it will turn out straight and even. For a more natural form, a real dry branch is suitable. A thick wire will help to make a curved trunk. But its thickness should be sufficient to withstand a heavy crown. To work with wire, you will need wire cutters and pliers. The crown can be additionally decorated with beads, rhinestones or other decorative elements.

For the New Year's topiary in the form of a tree, you will need a platform, which can also be made using a gypsum mixture. But sometimes a small stand is enough. The main thing is that the tree is stable. To create a topiary from beads about 13 cm high, the mixture will need about 60 grams, and the wire - about 30 meters. For Christmas trees, it is not necessary to use green, blue or white will do. The diameter of the wire is also not particularly important. The main thing is that it can be passed through the bead twice. In order to make spruce branches elastic, you will also need steel wire about three meters long, but you can do without it.

How to make a blank for a round topiary yourself

Styrofoam balls and blanks that are used to create trees come in different sizes. But their cost may seem too high and limit the variety of the composition. There is a way to replace an expensive element and create a topiary from beads of the desired diameter. For thisyou will need soft napkins or paper towels, PVA glue diluted with water in a ratio of 1: 1. You also need a balloon and a regular dishwashing sponge. We will create the basis for the topiary using the papier-mâché technique:

1. Inflate the balloon to the diameter of the workpiece and cover the surface with glue.
2. Glue the first layer of napkins, giving the workpiece a round shape.
3. Without waiting for it to dry completely, reapply the glue and attach the paper. The more layers, the stronger the workpiece will be.
4. Dry, burst the balloon with a needle and remove it by pulling on the peeking part.
5. Use the result of the work. The remaining hole can be used to insert a bead tree stem.

Another way is to make a blank from polyurethane foam. To do this, squeeze it into a plastic bag and quickly give it a spherical shape. When the mass hardens, remove the bag and cut off the excess with a sharp knife. In this way, you can create blanks of various shapes.

Creating a topiary from beads: a master class

After you have decided on the shape, start creating branches. A ball-shaped topiary made of beads and a product in the form of a tree are assembled from identical blanks. But in the case of a Christmas tree, their size will be different, since the lower branches in nature are longer than the upper ones. Therefore, first, short blanks are attached to the trunk of the winter topiary from beads, and then their size gradually increases. A lot needs to be done for a round topiarythe same branches to get an even shape.

Let's start the master class with the basics of weaving a winter tree. We prepare all the necessary materials, and then we take the wire and cut it into pieces from 40 to 70 cm long. We will create spruce branches with needle weaving. On a piece of wire 40 cm long, you will get about 17 needles 6 beads high. For a Christmas tree 13 cm high, you will need 5 pieces of 40 cm, 9 pieces of 50 and 60 cm and 11 pieces of 70 cm.

All branches will weave in the same way:

1. String 6 beads onto the wire.
2. Skip one and thread the wire back through the remaining 5 balloons. Don't leave a long edge, you don't need it. Tighten the resulting needle.
3. Keep weaving. Dial 6 beads again and repeat all the steps, skipping the last one.
4. Connect the resulting needle with the next one, pressing them together.
5. In the same way, weave all the branches.

Assembling the tree

When the blanks are woven, take the elastic wire. It should hold its shape well, but you should not use too thick. A diameter of 0.5 mm is sufficient. Wire with the desired properties is sold in beekeeping stores and veterinary pharmacies. Cut it into 30 pieces about 10 cm long. Use pliers to make a loop at the end of each piece. It should remain open, do not bend the wire to the end. Christmas tree made of beads consists of four tiers. On the first is the top and four branches. On the second and third levels -8 branches, and on the last - 9 pcs.

Now let's figure out how to assemble a spruce branch. To do this, you need to take a thick wire base and wind the blanks around it one by one, starting to fix the free part from below. Then, having reached the top, we collect the needles, moving in a spiral down. After that, the resulting branch must be pulled up to form the top of the Christmas tree, and the tip should be fixed. Pull the wire base down so that the eyelet catches on the workpiece. After that, the branch will be tightly fixed, will not move anywhere and will not unwind. We finally shape the needles by straightening or tightening them to create a denser tree. After all the branches are ready, we begin to collect them on a thick base using a thin wire. We fix the finished tree from beads on a plaster base or place it in a pre-prepared pot.

Decoration of round topiary

A spherical crown is created in a similar way. Only all branches will be the same size. Between them, you can add Christmas decorations or other beadwork, such as flowers. The wire usually pierces the base well and is fixed inside the workpiece. Sometimes the composition is additionally fixed with glue from a hot gun. But it can leave traces, so you should work carefully. The trunk of a spherical New Year's topiary is decorated with a floral ribbon, and it is also fixed in a pot with a gypsum mixture. On top, you can put some kind of decoration or cotton wool that imitatessnow. This will make the composition look complete.