Coach House Crafting on a budget: Sleigh bells ring

Friday 19 December 2014

Sleigh bells ring - DIY sleigh bells

Has it really been 4 months since my last post! Wow, that just goes to show the serious lack of creative impulses this year due to being ill so much. However, xmas is one time of year guarateed to get the imagination turning on all cogs and I've managed to get round to making a few decorations for the home - todays post is showing one that I've wanted to make for the last couple of years but have never seemed to get round to it - Sleigh bells!

There's loads of inspiration for these on Pinterest and so lacking is my imagination right now that I admit I had to pinch a few of the ideas but I'm totally thrilled with the finished piece.

My problem - well one of them - when working on a project is that I very rarely have a finished look in my head, the entire description I had down for this project was simply 'Sleigh bells', no ideas for what that actually meant and to be honest I made it up as I went along basing it on various Pinterest / Google images that I liked the look of.

Here's how I made it and the only item I had to buy was the belt because I didn't have an old, spare one.

I bought the belt from New look for a fiver and while that's more than I wanted to pay it had a nice pattern to it that I thought would work well so I begrudgingly put my hand in my pocket.
I had intended to batter the belt with a hammer to age it but I forgot!
I cut the belt into 2 lengths, one longer than the other and cut the pointed ends with scissors.
To attach the Sleigh bells (which I purchased yeeeeears ago ) I used a hole punch to punch 2 tiny holes behind each bell

then thread some craft wire through the sleigh bell hook into the holes and twisted the wire round the back of the belt to secure

I then cut pieces of black duck tape to cover over the wires attaching each of the sleigh bells but to be honest I think I should have attached one long piece of fabric down the entire length of the back and glued it with Fixall glue instead of each individual sleigh bell wire. Actually I think I will rectify this before it's stored away at the end of xmas

The rest was pretty easy to make up as I went along. The 2 belt pieces were joined together at a slight angle by punching a hole and threading wire through - though hot glue would probably work just as well.
I made the greenery form pieces of left over xmas decorations and wired that to the belt buckle using craft wire ( a decent gauge wire though that can withstand twisting without breaking) and the whole thing was attached to the wooden plaque with wire also - again hot glue would probably suffice.
The wooden plaque is simply a small wooden board from a new set of kitchen boards I've had stashed for years (I just knew there'd be a use for them somewhere) which I painted red with my daughters acrylic paints (Sssssshhhh), sanded down when it was dry and attached vinyl lettering cut with my Cricut machine (vinyl is my new fad and I can't wait to own a Silhouette Cameo).
I gave the whole board a quick spray with varnish and then attached the sleigh bells to it by threading wire through holes at the bottom of the board.

Voila! A perfectly cheap christmas decoration that with correct packaging will last for years.