Painted Wood Bead Garland DIY

ByLiberty May 11, 2020September 21, 2023

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I wanted to make a wood bead garland for my little pine cone tree. I was inspired to make a wood bead garland because of the one that Yvonne made over at StoneGable.com. Thank you for the idea, Yvonne!

Of course I wanted my wood bead garland to be a little different. I wanted to paint it Classic Blue for the color of the year this year! But it seemed like all of the wooden beads that I found were expensive! Even the ones that were on sale still seemed expensive. I’m used to getting my craft supplies for yard sale prices– or even free! (I have learned that sometimes it is better to just spend the money rather than spending all that time looking for something.)

But at my last thrift store stop before #stayinghome2020 I found what I needed.

Before

For $3 I found a wood bead car seat cover, shown above. The beads were a little larger than I wanted, but for the price, they were perfect!

I had been planning to paint whichever wooden beads I found, but I wasn’t sure how I would paint all around the beads. I realized that these wooden beads were all ready to be painted just the way they were. I was so glad that I hadn’t cut them off of the nylon strings yet! On a nice day, I cut the car seat cover into two pieces, and hung one of the pieces on a miniature garden flag pole so that I could spray paint it.

some wooden beads partially sprayed with blue paint

While it hung on the flag pole, I spray painted one side and then the other side. I spray painted the other piece white, the same way.

When the beads were dry, I cut the thick nylon strings to release the beads. They didn’t fall off as easily as I thought they wood, but they were not hard to disassemble.

Then I strung the blue and white beads, alternating them, on a thick piece of yarn. I could have made one strand using white beads, and one using blue beads, but I decided to alternate them instead. I have a lot of beads leftover for another project one day!