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.
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Very pretty
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