Introduction: DIY Painted Wooden Bead Garland With Tassels

About: Country Chic Paint is a beautiful clay-based furniture paint specifically designed for DIYers with a love for refinishing furniture and home decor. This fabulous paint is ultra low VOC and contains little to n…

All of the painting supplies used in this tutorial can be found on our website, www.countrychicpaint.com.

The Supplies:

  • Stir sticks for mixing the paint
  • Wooden skewers for drying the beads
  • Wooden beads (small & medium)
  • Foam brush for painting the beads with Metallic Cream
  • Plastic cups for mixing paint and separating beads
  • Yarn in any color for the garland and creating the tassels
  • Small pieces of cardboard for making the tassels and for covering the cups
  • Country Chic Paint All-in-One Decor Paint: Vintage Cupcake, Cherry Blossom, Lazy Linen, and Pebble Beach
  • Country Chic Paint Metallic Cream: Silver Bullet

Step 1: Choose a Pattern

Before you begin, it’s important to know how you want the beads to appear on your garland; you will need to know how many beads to paint in each color. We separated the beads and painted in the following colors:

  • 9 medium beads: Cherry Blossom
  • 9 medium beads: Vintage Cupcake
  • 9 medium beads: Lazy Linen
  • 16 small beads: Silver Bullet (pre-painted in Pebble Beach)
  • We separated 32 small beads and left them unpainted for a “raw wood” look.

Step 2: Start Painting!

Now that you’ve got your beads organized, you can start painting! Start by putting 9 medium-sized beads into a plastic cup. Make sure to shake the jar of paint really well before you open it and give it a stir with one of the stir sticks.

You can use the stir stick to add some Cherry Blossom paint into the cup (over the beads). Remember: you don’t need very much paint! To keep the paint from splattering everywhere, cover it with a piece of cardboard. Give the cup a good shake to cover the beads with paint — using this technique rather than painting each bead individually will save you lots of time!

Step 3: Let Them Dry

Spread the beads evenly across a skewer to dry. To get the beads off the table, you can place the skewer between two cups.

To paint more beads with the remaining colors (Lazy Linen and Vintage Cupcake), repeat the same steps above.

Step 4: Add Metallic Accents

Achieve a solid silver finish on the beads by painting them first with a base coat of Country Chic’s All-In-One Paint: Pebble Beach.

When the Pebble Beachbeads are completely dry, add them to another cup and add a little Silver Bullet Metallic Cream. You’ll notice that the Metallic Cream is quite a bit thicker than the paint, so you won’t be able to shake the cups like in the steps above. To cover the beads easily, just dip your foam brush into the Metallic Cream and stir the beads around. You can skewer the beads again and lay them out to dry.

Step 5: Organize by Color

When all of the beads are dry, we recommend keeping them organized in separate plastic cups. This will help you keep track of how many beads you have left for your garland.

Step 6: String Them Together

Start stringing the beads on a piece of yarn. Make sure to add them in the pattern and order that you’d like. Tie the ends of the yarn to keep the beads in place.

Step 7: Build Your Tassels

Now for the tassels! Grab a piece of cardboard and wrap the yarn around it. The cardboard can be cut to any size that you’d like the tassel to be. Our cardboard was cut to be about 4.5” in height. Cut the yarn once you are finished wrapping it around the cardboard. Cut a 12” piece of yarn and pull it through the wrapped yarn. Tie a double knot to keep the yarn together.

Now that you’ve secured the yarn, you can remove the cardboard carefully. Cut a 40” piece of yarn and tie it around the top of the tassel with a double knot. Keep wrapping that piece of yarn around the top until you’re happy with the look. Make another double knot to keep the yarn in place. When you’re finished, cut the yarn on the bottom of the tassel to free the looped strands and trim the ends.

Step 8: Finish It Off

Attach the garland and the tassels together.

That’s all there is to it! This garland would be perfect for nursery decor, events, holidays, and more! If you have any questions, please leave your comment below.