How to Make Christmas Ornaments

All five ornaments are built from plain unfinished wood beads. Buying a mix of sizes is what makes them look like a set instead of five unrelated things.

A multi-size assortment covers the wreath and the drop. Get a bag of 1-inch on its own, because that is the size most projects call for, and a bag of 1.5-inch for the snowman.

Unfinished is the right choice even if you plan to paint. Sealed or waxed beads resist paint and glue.

Before anything else, empty the bags into a pie tin or a baking tray.

This sounds like a fussy extra step. It is the difference between picking the size you want in one second and chasing beads across the kitchen floor, which is what happens the moment you tip a bag straight onto a table.

A pan with a lip also lets you push beads around with one hand while the other holds wire or a needle.

Cut a length of floral wire and start threading beads on in a repeating pattern - one medium, one small, one medium, one small.

Silver wire disappears better than green, but either works, because the beads cover almost all of it. Whatever you have is fine.

Keep threading until the strand is long enough to bend into the ring size you want. Bigger beads and a longer strand make a bigger wreath, so decide roughly how big before you commit to a wire length.

Bend the beaded strand into a circle, twist the two wire ends together two or three turns, and snip off the excess. Push the twist round so it sits behind a bead rather than out in the open.

Then tie a length of jute around that join in a bow, and leave a loop above it long enough to go over a branch.

The bow is not only decoration. The join is the one part of a bead wreath that ever looks unfinished, and the bow covers it.

The drop is the same idea in a straight line, and it is the fastest of the five.

Thread a length of jute onto a large-eye needle and string beads down it. Smallest at the bottom building to largest at the top looks deliberate, but alternating sizes works too.

Knot the jute underneath the bottom bead so nothing slides off, then tie the top into a hanging loop. This is the one to hand to a child who wants to help.

Wrap yarn around a tassel maker about 30 times. A stiff piece of cardboard cut to the length you want does exactly the same job, so do not buy a tool for this unless you want one.

Before you start wrapping, lay a separate length of yarn into the groove at the top. That piece becomes both the tie and the hanger, and threading it afterwards is much harder.

Thicker chunky yarn gives a fuller, softer tassel. Standard worsted gives a neater, skinnier one. Both look right on a tree.

Pull the length you laid in the groove tight around the whole bundle and knot it, then slide the bundle off the frame.

Cut a second piece of yarn and wrap it around the tassel about an inch below the top, tying it off to form the neck. How far down you put the neck is the only real decision here, and lower gives a rounder head.

Then cut through the loops at the bottom and trim the ends level.

Thread two or three wood beads onto the tassel's hanging cord with the needle so they sit just above the neck.

This small move is what pulls the whole set together. The same beads now appear on the wreath, the drop and the tassel, so on the tree they read as a collection rather than as separate crafts.

If you want the beads lighter, paint them white with a foam brush. One coat is plenty and the wood grain still shows through, which is the look you want. Let them dry fully before threading.

Stack three beads on a length of jute, largest at the bottom. The 1.5-inch beads make a good-sized snowman; 1-inch makes a smaller one that suits a narrow tree.

Knot the jute underneath so the stack cannot slide off, then tie a loop at the top for hanging. Tie a thin strip of ribbon around the join between the top two beads for a scarf.

Draw the face with a black marker for the eyes and mouth and an orange one for the nose. Two dots for eyes, a short curve of dots for the mouth, a small triangle for the carrot. Keep it simple - the more you add the less like a snowman it looks.

The angel is two loops of wired ribbon and one bead.

Fold a length of ribbon into a loop and glue the ends together for the body. Fold a second, wider loop for the wings and glue it across the back of the first. Push a length of jute up through a 1-inch bead, glue the bead on top of the ribbon as the head, and leave the jute long so it doubles as the hanger.

Finish with a small circle of jute glued flat above the head as a halo. Burlap ribbon with a red stitch down each edge keeps it Christmassy without shouting.