This week I'm planning on having a dinner party and wanted to make some individual accessories that would be functional and beautiful for my table.
I chose to go with a blue and silver colour theme and picked up some fantastic beads from Hobbycraft to make decorative napkin rings. The joy about this craft is that it is so quick to do and you can personalise your table to suit. You can make bespoke napkins for every occasions, like sparkly Christmas-themed napkins that fit in with your festive decorations.
Materials
18 gauge wire
Variety of beads in different shapes and sizes
Equipment
Wire cutters
Round-nose pliers
Difficulty: Easy
Create the curve
Take one end of your wire and using the round-nose pliers create a tight circle so that the beads will not fall off the end.
Get beading
Thread the beads onto the wire. Use a variety of sizes to make the napkins rings more interesting. You can choose to make the napkin rings uniform or mix it up, as I have with mine.
Secure the end
When you have enough beads on so that the wire will wrap around your napkin a couple of times, hold the end to ensure the last bead doesn't fall off then create the curved shape. An easy tip would be to wrap the beaded wire around an empty toilet roll tube. Once you are happy with how much curve you have, with your wire cutters cut the wire 5mm from the end of the last bead and then shape this into a tight circle with the round-nose pliers like you did at the start. This makes sure no beads will fall off. The reason to not cut the wire until the curve has been created is to allow the beads to move slightly and settle into the curved shape otherwise you may find that the wire will not curve as easily into the shape you are looking for.
Rock and roll
Roll up your napkins and secure with the napkin ring. Beautiful!
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