My First Tutorial: Wired Beaded Hair Thingies!

Well, since my creative urge came back today with a bit of sun in the afternoon, I figured I would dive right in and try a tutorial. I have been on the look out on line for instructions for some fun summer hair thingies that would involve beads, but they are few and far between. I did find something I liked on jewelrymaking.about.com, but have decided to adapt it a bit, since the directions weren't the greatest, as I started trying to make it. Also, I don't know about the rest of you, but I am a very visual learner, and need a lot of pictures to go with what I am doing, so there will be lots of photos with each instruction. This is something that even the most basic beader can make, with just a few tools, so enjoy!

Items needed:
Thick elastic ponytail holder (I like Scuncis)

An assortment of seed beads in your favorite colors (I used size 11 in these pics, but I'm sure you can use any size you like). I like to mix them up in a shallow bowl.

Craft wire (22-24 gauge is good)








Knitting needles of various sizes, or pencils


Round nose pliers
Wire cutters

1. First cut the wire into 3 equal lengths of 8 inches. The original tutorial called for 6 inches, but I found this too meager.

2. Put your assortment of beads into a little bowl or on a beading mat.
(see photo above!)

3. Curl the end of each wire with your round nose pliers so the beads don't fall off!
4. String the beads in random order onto each wire, leaving about 1.5 inches at each end.


5. When you are done stringing, curl each end with your round nose pliers.

6. Then make each wire into a U shape, and push the beads towards each end, leaving a space in the middle.

7. Take all three wires and twist them together.

So they end up looking like this -

8. Take the Scuncii and carefully twist the trio of wires around it.

9. Take each wire and coil it around a knitting needle, pencil or dowel. On some of these, I used a variety of different sizes of needles, and on others, I used all the same size. The coils should go in a bunch of different directions, depending on your inclination.

10. That's it, you're done! Now wasn't that easy?

This is how it looks with a different colorway of beads. These make great end of the year teacher gifts, by the way!

Please send me any comments, photos of your work, etc. I would love to see different takes on this!