This shares how I made a DIY wood bead Christmas tree garland using unfinished round and geometric-shaped beads. It’s an easy way to add a cozy touch to your tree or mantle.
How to Make a Stunning, Simple DIY Wood Bead Christmas Garland
I shared a peek at this on Instagram a few days ago with a caption saying how I’ve been mostly unmotivated to work on projects lately. And if I do a project, I’m not really keen on documenting every step of it.
Sometimes I just want to make something and not worry about staging perfectly lit flat lay shots of each step in the process. So most of the pictures in this post were taken with my phone while I was cozied up in bed stringing beads and listening to a new true crime podcast.
Ramona went down for a nap, and I had a bit of a quiet time, too. Mindlessly stringing the beads was honestly kind of therapeutic.
Wood Bead Garland DIY
We’re planning to do a smaller potted tree this year and plant it in the spring, and I thought a DIY wood bead Christmas tree garland would be the perfect natural-looking accent to go along with it.
This is a pretty straightforward DIY, but I figured I’d still share a post about it and include a few tips and tricks along the way. So let’s chat first about what I used and where you can get the supplies.
Then we’ll dive in to the luxuriously lazy DIY steps 🙂 If you want a more involved DIY garland that uses unfinished wood beads, check out last year’s DIY wood bead and dried orange slice garland.
- Various sizes of unfinished wood beads in different shapes—I got mine at Michaels simply because Ramona and I needed to get out of the house on a Sunday! You can buy them on Amazon. Here is a similar set for the round beads I got, and here is a similar pack for geometric beads.
- Black bead cord and needle large enough to thread the bead cord through
- Scissors
Like Christmas ornament DIYs? Check out my clear ball ornament ideas, faux-marbled tree ornaments, paint stirrer ornaments, stovetop potpourri ornaments, and glitter ornaments.
And here’s how to make a DIY Wood Bead Christmas Tree Garland.
Step 1: Gather supplies
I decided to mix and match round beads of various sizes with geometric beads. We got all of our supplies at Michaels. They have a better selection than Joann—in stores, at least.
However, remember that Michaels will honor one competitor coupon per transaction! This was perfect because Joann was running a 60% off coupon that I used on the $15 bead set.
I used a second Michaels 40% off coupon for the smaller bead set, and then another Michaels coupon for the bead cord. After stacking a 20% off your overall order coupon, we had shaved a TON of money off the total.
I think it was between $10 and $15 for all of the supplies. You can also get really affordable unfinished beads on Amazon. Just make sure you get bulk packs. If you buy the strung beads at the craft store, you will get less for your money.
You can also get more for your money buying slightly larger packs of bead cord. I know I’ll use my leftovers for something else. I also grabbed a needled from my small sewing kit. A beading needle would have been much easier, but I didn’t want to buy one because I don’t do much bead work (#cheap).
Instead, I just jammed the bead cord through the tiny needle. It was a struggle, but I did it! Using a needle is a no-brainer—it makes the stringing process SO much easier and less frustrating.
Step 2: String in patterns
I decided to do five separate bead garlands to keep the size manageable. When I put them on the tree, I’ll just wind it so it looks like one. I also did slightly different patterns on each garland so I had different options. I figure I might use one for somewhere else in the house since we’re going with a small tree.
To get started, I cut a piece of cord and did a tight triple knot on the end. Then thread the opposite end of the cord through a needle. I began stringing the beads in a rough pattern. I say “rough pattern” because I was honestly just mindlessly stringing. If I made a mistake in the pattern, I knew it wouldn’t be that big of a deal.
I tried to use a good mix of sizes and patterns, but since I had a lot more small beads than I had large beads, I did one garland that is almost all small beads. The needle is also helpful with the smaller beads because you can thread them two, three, or even four at a time.
Step 3: Secure the end of the garland
When I finished stringing beads onto each of the garlands, I tied another triple knot as snug as I could get it to the last bead. I toyed with dabbing a bit of glue on them to further secure the knots in place (like I did with my DIY hanging plant pot holder), but I decided the triple knot was secure enough.
The garland isn’t really carrying any weight. And here’s the finished piece! So simple, yet so gorgeous. I’ll update it with some additional pictures once we get our tree up.
Since we’re doing the real potted tree, I am going to keep it outside on the balcony in the sun until we’re a bit closer to Christmas. (In the meantime, you can check out last year’s Christmas home tour!)
If you like this, check out my post about how to preserve evergreen cuttings in resin for holiday decor, my roundups of modern Christmas decor ideas and natural Christmas decorations for the home, my DIY pine cone potpourri, and my winter stovetop potpourri tutorial!
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