Beaded Spiral Twirligig

This super-simple ornament is made from a length of craft wire (aout 10-12" long) curved into a spiral and strung with beads. These ornaments are a great way to use up a stash of odd beads, jingle bells, and bits of costume jewellery.

For the first ornament, shown at left, I used 18 gauge aluminum craft wire -- it's malleable enough to work with but holds its shape well when curved. To get the spiral I just wrapped the wire four times around a broom handle and then stretched it out slightly to make a pleasing shape.

Making the Ornaments
For the Daffy and Sylvester ornaments below, I used a coiled wire salvaged from a large steno notebook -- the coil was quite wide (about 1 1/4"), and once it was spread out a bit, there was enough wire to make three ornaments.

For all three ornaments, I used round- nosed pliers to make a loop in one end of the wire to accommodate a bauble, then I threaded on an assortment of beads and additional dangles.  For dangles, you can use small plastic charms, beads, interesting buttons, jingle bells, mini tree ornaments, game board pieces or any other small items that can be strung onto the wire along with the beads.
 
On all three ornaments, I spaced the dangles at intervals between the beads, attaching them to the spiral with tiny jump rings. I used small beads just before and after the dangles to allow the dangles to move freely.

Keep threading on beads, jingle bells, motifs, and buttons until you're about 1/2" -3/8" from the top of the wire spiral, then make another loop using the pliers. Insert a Christmas tree hook or loop of string for hanging.

About the Dangles and Baubles
For the multicolored Looney Tunes ornament (top), I used laminated images, each between .75" and 1" tall, as dangles. For the Daffy and Sylvester versions, I made small baubles from headpins and beads, and added salvaged figurines of the two characters: Daffy was a happy meal giveaway from McDonald's some years back, while Sylvester is an old Kinder Surprise toy that I had in my crafting stash.

On the Daffy ornament, the alphabet bead dangle spells his name, while two others feature tiny coins. I also gave him a pearl and coin to hold, as he did in Ali Baba Bunny (one of my favorite cartoons). As the figure is quite soft material, I was able to push a short pin through the pearl and into his hand to hold it in position. The colors of the beaded spiral were chosen to coordinate with the figure of Daffy.




The Sylvester version also features beaded dangles assembled from a variety of beads and baubles. If you look closely you'll see that one of them is a portrait of Sylvester on a 7/8" button; there's also a Santa bead dangle, and a little yellow glass bird bead. The predominant color scheme for this ornament is black-red-white to reflect Sylvester's colors, and, though Tweety isn't actually here, two small touches of yellow call him to mind.

I have made many of these ornaments in a variety of themes; they're a great way to use up odd beads and bangles, and the various baubles lend lots of movement. If you like even more movement, you could attach the whole ornament to a spinner (the kind that are intended for fishing lures) so they can rotate freely on the tree.

As with most of the ornaments on the site, these could be adapted to any theme. I can envision a Hogwarts ornament featuring the different houses, for example. And I have a small alien figurine just waiting to be incorporated into an ornament. 

NOT JUST FOR LOONEY TUNES...!

The spirals make a great sports-related ornament, with dangles that reflect a fan's devotion. On this green-white-silver Riders ornament, moving up from the bottom, you can see

  • a football,
  • a happy face,
  • a green jingle bell,
  • a silver heart, and
  • a small "#1 Fan"button.

The word "RIDERS" is spelled out with alphabet beads on the spiral just above the football.

The bauble at the bottom of the spiral didn't show up so well in the photo, but it's made with two flattened bottle caps glued back-to-back. I painted the rims green and filled the flat part of the cap with a Riders logo.  The bauble is the same on both sides.

This colorful "Good Tea - Good Friends" ornament also features a bauble made from two flattened bottle caps glued back-to-back. I painted the rims red and included the good tea - good friends captions.

I was going for lots of color on this one, so chose multi-colored beads including some tea-colored ones. In keeping with the theme I included a colorful teapot and mug, plus some heart motifs and a jingle bell.

For good measure, I added an interior dangle of alphabet beads spelling out the names of the two friends.

My friend loves Mickey and Minnie Mouse, and this little figurine was a perfect dangle for a spiral ornament.

As with the previous ornaments, I added dangles here and there on this one, to provide movement and interest. If you look closely, moving up the coil,  you'll see:

  • a tiny metal heart that says "Made with Love",
  • a jingle bell,
  • a letter "M" from a child's bead set,
  • a glittered Christmas light bead,
  • a pearl heart dangle,
  • a red bow bead,
  • a silver star dangle,
  • a tiny Christmas stocking.

And like the previous ornaments, this one incorporates beads in colors to match the Mouse dangle -- red, black, and white, with touches of gold and green as accents. 

My friend is going to love it.

The ornament doesn't have to have an explicit theme, of course -- a simple color scheme can be enough to make a lovely ornament, such as the blue-white-silver version at left. For this one, which is about 7" long overall, I again used a wire coil salvaged from a large coil-bound notebook.

I chose beads in various shades of blue, plus white, crystal, and silver, and made the baubles out of separate beaded units threaded onto head pins. (You can even see a little snowman bead if you look carefully).



These spiral ornaments look very pretty on the tree, and you can vary the look quite dramatically by changing  the dangles and bead combinations. They're also a great way to use up odd beads and bits of recycled costume jewellery. You could also make dangles from FIMO or use pretty buttons.

The very first spiral ornament that I made was lobster-themed, featuring blue-green beads and large (about 2" long) lobster-shaped confetti spangles. It brought a smile to my lobster-loving brother-in-law on Christmas morning. Or possibly a groan, since my sisters and I have been gifting him with all things lobster for years now . . . .