Lacey Dream-Catchers

    My grandparents had/have? this thing for Indians. I’m sure there’s some kind of reason, but I never thought to ask. When I was little, they lived near me & I spent half my days at their house. There were no rules at Grandma’s house. If we wanted ice cream for breakfast & pancakes for dinner, we got it no questions asked. We were allowed all the junk food we wanted (I still haven’t decided if that was a good thing or not) & to stay up watching movies as late as we could. I can go on & on telling crazy things my grandparents let us do, or even, did with us. But for today, I’m getting to the point & the point is dreamcatchers/my grandparent’s weird obsession with Indian stuff. They had Indian dolls, squash drums, artifacts, & dreamcatchers. Recently I’d been thinking about them a lot & missing them. They now live in Missouri & I live in Texas. So I have not seem them in a year & a half. On top of missing them, it seemed as if dreamcatchers were popping up everywhere in my world. I decided I needed to make one myself. We had a ‘ladie’s night’ & made a few. I found the inspiration on pinterest, of course. 

 

     The doily is the star of the show along with a metal ring, assorted feathers &/or beads, leather cord, hemp, a pair os fabric scissors, & a hot glue gun.  

     First, cut the doily to fit inside the ring. Ignore this step if you’re the lucky duck who’s doily fits perfectly in your ring without cutting. 

     Add a dab of hot glue to your starting point. 

     Cut a loooooong piece of leather cord & attatch one end to the drop of hot glue. Wrap the rest of the cord tightly around the ring. 

     Continue until the ring is completely wrapped. Adding dollops of hot glue here & there as you are wrapping is recommended. If you do happen to run out of cord before reaching the end of the ring, hot glue the end to the ring, cut off a new piece & pick up where you left off. Easy fix. Do not trim the tail of the cord immediately. Leave enough room to make the loop for hanging. 

     Using the hemp, double-knot the doily to the leather wrapped ring. Depending on the size of your dream-catcher, make as many of these knots as you feel led to. Be sure to space them apart evenly.

     Use dots of hot glue on the heads of the knots for reinforcement. 

     Hot glue the end of the loop to the top of the ring. Trim as needed. 

     Then tie on feathers & beads, etc. as desired. A common dreamcatcher has 3 uniformed feathers hanging down from the left, right, & middle. Get as creative as you want. I definitely did!

     To attach feathers easily, hot glue an eye pin to the body of the feather & attach to string at loop. So much easier & faster!

     Continue decorating until you are happy with the outcome. 

     I bought some smaller hoops to make dream-catcher necklaces & earrings with also. We’ll see if that makes a post in the future. We had fun making these, although they are a bit time-consuming. It was Erica’s first time using a hot glue gun, we’re still teaching her our creative ways. Have fun!