A friend of mine was wearing a wee bird’s nest around her neck when I saw her last week.  I squee-ed and then I went home and started looking up tutorials for these.  Seems I really missed the boat.  These have been gracing the interwebs for ages.  So, I’m late on the bandwagon, but *needed* one.  And, as it turns out, it’s an easy craft for kids too!  Abby immediately started making hers when she saw me start mine.  Honestly, I think I like hers better!

I looked at a lot of images of nests out there (see here and here) and then looked at a few tutorials (see here and here).  In the end, Abby and I just winged (ha!) it with what we had on hand.  The wire is 20-ish gauge sterling I had in my jewelry supplies from 10 years ago.  My beads (the cream ones) had fallen off a bracelet and Abby’s (the turquoise) are from a Melissa and Doug jewelry set she got a year ago (somewhat like this one).  It is easier to secure the wire by using some needle nose pliers, but any pliers would work in a pinch.

In the simplest terms:

What you need:

• 3-4 feet of 20-ish gauge wire (or lots more feet of a smaller wire. . . you can experiment on this)
• 3 beads that you like and look egg-ish
• pliers
• wire cutters
• a string to make the necklace out of

What to watch out for:

• Long ends of the wire can be unwieldy and sharp.  So keep a good eye on the kiddo (and yourself, Abby kept inadvertently poking me with her wire as she wrapped!)
• When cutting off wire ends, they can fly pretty far.  Maybe do that part away from the littles and um, look away when you clip.  I had a piece of the wire fly right at my eye.  Eeeks!

What you do:

• String 3 beads onto some wire. (the larger the gauge, the skinnier the wire and the more yardage you’ll need.  Experiment here.)
• Wrap the wire around the outside of the 3 beads a bunch of times.
• Stop and secure the bundle of wires by putting your wire down between the 3 beads and wrap around the “wreath” a few times.

Abby (6) wrapping the wire around the “eggs” to craft a nest.

• Wrap around the outside of the beads some more, then secure again.
• Repeat until you like how it looks.
• Secure your ends by twisting them into a circle you can string your necklace through. (Here’s a much more extensive and fancy way to make a bail with wire.  You’ll get the gist if you check this out.)
• Trim off any sharp ends with wire cutters.
• String onto a necklace.
• Wear with pride.

Abby’s looks amazing because she wasn’t as *precise* as I was trying to be.  Her imprecision and carefree wrapping makes hers look a bit more natural.  I LOVE it.

She was able to do 85% of this project by herself.  I had to hold onto the nest while she secured her wraps and I made the bail for her.

We’ve been wearing our nests around and looking for signs of spring outside.  (Um, the snow around here is making THAT task hard!).

A fun, simple crafty project to while away these snowbound days.