Bumble Bees and Pecans

It's Spring and our Spring Cottage Sale is in full swing, and here I am at 12:25 a.m. making bumble garland to put out for tomorrow's sale.  Still going strong Friday and Saturday, hundreds of great Spring and Easter Decorations, gift items, collectibles, antiques and so much more, but that's for another blog.....

I haven't ever posted about one of my craft projects before, but I think this garland is quite clever, and takes a little time, but is fairly easy.

What you'll need:
Pecans
Black Spray Paint
Yellow craft paint
Cordless drill and small drill bit
16 gauge black wire
Window screen
Heavy duty scissors
Glue gun
Needle nose pliers

Drill holes through pecans either end to end or through the middle depending on how you prefer to hang your bees; spray them all black;

Using bright yellow craft paint - I used Daffodil - add your bumble bee stripes;

Using heavy duty work scissors, cut modified heart shapes for your wings from the window screen;

With a drop of hot glue add your wings to the top center of your bee. If you have drilled the holes through the middle for vertical hanging,be sure to not glue your wing over the hole. I simply cut a deeper v into my heart shape so the wings go "around" the pre-drilled hole.


I like to leave my wire on the spool until I have completed my garland because I kind of "free hand" my curls and spirals, so I never know how much wire I will actually use. For garland, feed the horizontal drilled "bees" onto the wire.

Curl the cut end of the wire into a loop for hanging, the add a few spirals. Move a bee that you previously fed onto the wire up to the spiral, and add another spiral, move the next bee up the wire, and continue for length of garland you wish. I use about 7 "bees" per strand. Once you've completed getting the "bees" into place and your final spiral, leave a length of wire, and clip the garland from the spool, with your needle nose pliers, curl the end into a loop for hanging.

I like to use a wooden spoon to wrap my wire around for my spirals.

I like to make vertical "bees" to hang from pots or garden hooks. Use the same technique above, but use the bees you drilled through the middle.







and there you have a garden of bumble bee garland from pecans...........buzz! I think I shall try some Lady Bugs from walnuts next!