A little taste of spring

I love free crafts. Actually, who I am kidding, I love all things free! But that's beside the point. I happened into one of my favorite little shops on Friday morning and saw a little votive that inspired me to make this dandy little thing that didn't cost me a dime. I had everything on hand so it was super easy to put together this afternoon while we waited for the Superbowl to come on. Here's how to do it.





I headed out into my yard and did a little pruning. You need really thin branches but not too thin that they are not strong....something sturdy. I used an old glass votive that was burnt down to nothing and I had a string of beads that I had on hand. You will also need a hot glue gun (not a low temp one) and a pair of scissors.
Cut your branches in various lengths. My tallest stick was about 6 inches tall, the shortest was just above the top of the glass jar.

Warm up your glue and put a dot of glue on the top of each branch and dip your bead into the glue. It worked best if I stuck the branch into the tip of the glue gun (mine has an open nozzle) and then dipped the tip of the branch directly onto the bead. I hate the strings from the glue gun and this seemed to alleviate them since you weren't pulling the glue away at any point. Your beads on the branches will look like this:

Take your glue gun and slowly start by putting glue on the middle and bottom of the glass jar doing an inch at a time. Then place your sticks into the glue pushing firmly into the glue. Continue until you go all the way around making sure the sticks are close together. See how you can't even see the glass jar underneath anymore?

You can then wrap raffia or twine around the middle to cover up any residual glue that you may be able to see. Place a votive inside your jar and stand back and admire!

BEAUTIFUL!