Today, I’ve got a sweet little craft that I’m excited to share because it’s a great project to do with older daughters, nieces, or any other special girl in your life. My daughter and I recently invited my nieces over for a crafting afternoon, and these boho dreamcatchers were the project of choice for this “Cousins Crafting” get-together.

I grabbed some simple supplies from the craft store earlier in the week so we could dive right into crafting. A couple hours later, we had three happy tweens/teens with a finished craft to decorate their rooms. Somewhere along the way, we had the idea that this would make a fun project to share on the blog, so I grabbed the camera and my nieces set to work helping me arrange supplies to take pictures of each step along the way.

(These brilliant young ladies could have a promising career in blogging, I think! I’m sure I’m not biased at all.)

After a little brainstorming, we decided to dub this project “Boho Dreamcatcher Chandeliers” and if you’d like to craft one for yourself or a special young lady in your life, you can check out the step-by-step instructions below.

We did learn a few important tips that you might want to consider before you get started:

1. Snacks. We all agreed that some sort of chocolate is a necessary component to making this craft a success.
2. Bead size – The beads I purchased for our project were quite small. We all liked the way they looked on the finished project, but it did require using a small needle, which was tricky for the girls to thread. I ended up doing “needle-threading” duty for the afternoon, but if you want to make things a little easier on yourself, I recommend using larger beads so you can work with a larger needle.
3. This project took us close to two hours to complete (including the aforementioned chocolate snack breaks). While it worked great for the age of my daughter and nieces, it might be a stretch for younger girls with shorter attention spans.
4. Find deep bowls to put your feathers in. My containers were too shallow, and as a result, the lightweight feathers escaped and scattered all over my dining room. By the time we finished, it looked like we’d killed a pink and turquoise chicken on the table!

Now that I’ve given you our tips, you can grab some supplies and get ready to craft one of these boho chandeliers yourself. Happy Crafting!

Supplies Needed

• Embroidery Hoop (We used a 9″ hoop)
• feathers in 3 different colors
• gold paint
• paintbrush
• gold thread or ribbon
• needles
• beads in various colors
• needle (*make sure it’s small enough to fit through your beads when threaded)

How to Make

Step 1: Separate your embroidery hoop into the inner and outer hoops. Paint the inner hoop using gold metallic paint. Set aside to dry. (You can discard the outer hoop or save for another project.)

Step 2: Thread your needle with a long piece of gold thread. (We cut ours about 2.5 feet long) Tie a knot at the end of the thread.

Step 3: Poke your needle through the stem of your feather. (Our feathers were small so finding the thickest part on the end was important to ensure the thread could be pulled through without tearing.) Pull thread all the way through until the knot catches on the stem.

Step 4: Thread a bead onto your gold thread and move it into the position you want near the feather. Once you have it positioned, hold the bead in place while pulling your needle back through the bead one more time. (It’s a little hard to see, but this will create a loop on the side of your bead like the one pictured below.) Adding this extra loop of thread around the bead will help it stay in place instead of slipping down your thread.

Step 5: Continue threading feathers and beads onto your strand. (We used 3 feathers per strand, with about 6 or 7 beads on each.) Repeat this to create 9-12 strands, depending how “full” you want your dreamcatcher to look. See below for what your finished strands will look like.

Step 6: Take a snack break. We chose to eat some Muddy Buddies I’d made before the girls came over. We all agreed, this is a very important step to take because it takes awhile to get all those feathers and beads on that thread!

Step 7: Tie the individual feather/bead strands to your embroidery hoop. We made ours just a little “loose” so that we could move the strands around the hoop and space them more easily.

Step 8: Cut three more strands of your gold thread, about 3 feet each. Tie these three strands to your hoop at even intervals around the hoop. These are the strands that will pull UP to create a hanger.

Step 9: Gather the three strands you just tied together in the center of your hoop. Tie them in a knot, creating one three-string strand that you can now use to hang your chandelier.

Step 10: You’re all done. Clean up your supplies, and find a fun place to show off your pretty new boho dreamcatcher!