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One of two painstakingly hand-crafted pearl trees... |
It's not something that I think about on a regular basis, but whenever I see
an unusual or particularly magnificent tree, I'm reminded of this fact.
On our vacation through Cape Breton Island and Ottawa, I was captivated by how
leafy trees canopied the highways in that part of the country. It's so unlike
what I see at home on the prairies, where – if it's not flat farmland
disappearing into the horizon – the trees are more the tall, sparsely branched
evergreen variety than the thick, bushy deciduous kind.
Anyway, for those of you who don't give two figs how I feel about trees, that
was a long preamble to the subject of today's post, which you can tell from
the photos is clearly not about sewing, although it is somewhat about trees.
It is also a bit about
problem solving and making do. As I've learned over the past
decade, to evolve as a student of sewing – or any craft or livelihood – it is
extremely helpful to know how to adapt to unforeseen circumstances.
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| Pearl trees bookending my ROKR wooden owl... |
Sometime last year, I looked up what item traditionally marks a 30th
wedding anniversary and learned that it was pearls. When I did a search for what type of pearl gifts were common, I
found a whole lot of trees. Naturally, my immediate thought was,
how can I DIY one?
Off I went to YouTube.
By the way, I don't recall which exact videos that I watched, but here is an
example that shows one way of tackling this (you'll have to copy and paste the
link to make it work):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opJhbuOsvmE
After seeing a couple of videos, I felt confident of being able to attempt the process. I wasn't looking to replicate anyone's project, just wanting to understand the basic technique enough to put my own spin on something. (Didn't realize how true that would end up being at the time!)
For supplies, trips to Dollar Tree and Dollarama yielded the following items for $8.50:
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| My DIY supplies... |
I was actually quite pleased with the look of the pearls and purchased four
packages in three different sizes. Underneath the supplies, you can see my
planning sheet where I scribbled out how to make various branches and how many
beads they would require.
I'm calling them beads because that's what I assumed they were based on the
labeling on the packages. Even after I opened them up and dumped them into
small zippered bags, it still didn't occur to me that they were oddly missing
one important characteristic of being called a "bead."
THEY HAD NO HOLES.
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| Technically, not beads! |
On the day that I sat down to start making my tree, I cut a length of wire and
finally noticed that I had no way of threading these!
I knew that I only spent $7 on these "beads" and could have gone out and found
others with actual holes in them, but something told me to make the best of
the situation and come up with a solution. This meant, of course, going back
online and searching for ideas.
What I came across were stones and other found items being wrapped with wire
to make jewelry. While I could see how that would work for odd shaped pieces,
a slippery round bead would surely be hard to wrap, right?
As it turned out, if one is patient and determined, it's doable.
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| A "make do" solution... |
At first, I used two lengths of wire, overlapping them to form a cross around
the pearl. I figured this would be the most secure way to hold them (and it
probably is). However, this method used up a lot of wire and the result wasn't
pretty. It led me to decide that my original instinct – the single wrap that
you see here – was the right choice, even though it's obviously not the most
secure.
What I discovered was that if I twisted really tightly, the hold was
surprisingly good. (And no, I didn't have to apply any glue.)
My plan was to make twenty branches with eleven beads on each. The first
seven beads were the small size, followed by two medium and then two large
ones. The branch pictured below is nicely done – I definitely got better
with practice – but the first attempts were imperfect, to say the
least.
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| I made eighteen branches in this general style... |
I ran out of wire after finishing fifteen branches, so it was back to
Dollarama to pick up more. With a new supply of wire, I decided to start
wrapping branches together to see if I could form a decent looking tree of any
sort. It soon became clear that this particular wire wasn't strong enough to
support more than three branches put together, so – once again – it was time
to re-think the process. Instead of one big tree, I decided to create an
arrangement using combinations of three branches.
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| This arrangement has six branches... |
My plan was to push these branches into a floral foam block and then put that
into a decorative pot. But around the same time as this crafting was
happening, I was trying to find a way to make a couple of
Airwick air fresheners work again.
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| Destined for the garbage bin, these came in handy... |
They are just the right size and have enough weight to them to hold my pearl
branches in place. The opening, however, is only big enough for three bunches
of three branches, so I made only three others, calling the project a done
deal at eighteen branches total.
Very happy to have found another opportunity for reuse in the most unlikeliest
of circumstances!
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| This arrangement is made up of nine branches... |
By the way, as I was wrapping the branches together, I only had three beads
pop out on me. I was super impressed that they held up to being manipulated in
such a manner. I had another two pop out as I twisted and bent individual
"leaves" to arrange them, but all in all, their holding power has been
amazing.
In the end, I'm totally satisfied with how this project came together after
the unexpected obstacle of beads having no holes. (Oh, I've since been edified
about these pearls: apparently they're meant to be used decoratively as filler
for vases or glass containers. I still think they should be clearly labelled
as having no holes, however.) The only real negative was that it wasn't a
project that hubby was able to participate in; per my original intention. I
had envisioned us taking the supplies on our vacation out east and
assembling branches during our down time. Given how the process ended up being rather finicky, neither the ultimately fragile branches nor hubby's bigger fingers
would have made that plan a reality!
Before I sign off – to stay on topic and as further evidence that I am fond of
trees – here are three tree projects that are actually sewing related that
I've either made or provided a reference to: the hanging Christmas tree,
tabletop tree
and
button tree.
'Til next... 🇨🇦🍁
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