Okay, your house is decorated, your tree is up, but something is missing. Oh yeah, homemade icicles for the tree! Forget purchasing beads and stringing them for hours on end. Those are beautiful but way too involved. Want something really sparkly that only takes a couple minutes to make? Grab a box of pencils and get busy creating fabulous Christmas tree icicles! Pencils can easily be turned into unique and beautiful icicles. Shorter pencils, and ones that have been sharpened down, make the best ones for this project. Pencils with no erasers are great. Regular size pencils can be used to make the icicles if you have a huge tree but they will appear way too long on a normal size tree.
Use normal wire ornament hangers to hang the pencil icicles. The hangers can be opened at the bottom, where they attach to the ornament, and taped to the flat end of the pencil. Whether the pencil has an eraser or not wont matter when it comes to attaching the hanger. Use a narrow piece of tape to temporarily hold the hanger to the pencil. After you finish the icicle the tape will be covered up and unnoticeable.
There are several different techniques for creating icicles from pencils. One way is to cover the pencil in glue and roll it in silver, gold or white glitter. The best glue is a spray-on adhesive that dries quickly rather than a drippy glue like ordinary white glue. Its difficult to find a manner in which to hang the pencil while the glitter dries so using adhesives which naturally dry quickly is the best bet. Using spray-on glitter might not give you the outcome youd like. Often, the spray-on types of glitter will allow you to still see the facets of the pencil. The bulkiness of regular glitter, especially after glittering the pencil more than once, can help conceal the various sides of the pencil. Hold the pencil by one end while you glitter half the pencil then hold the glittered end while you do the opposite end. Sometimes its necessary to repeat the glue and glitter steps depending upon how thickly you want to coat each pencil. One roll in the glitter will often leave some empty spots that need retreated. Instead of ordinary glitter you can also cover the pencil in rock salt or table salt. Cover the pencil with glue and roll it in the salt. Salt catches the light from the tree and makes these icicles really sparkle. The size you make the pencils is up to you, but for ordinary size trees, five to six inches is perfect. Create many of the unique icicles to hang on the tree. If you want you can attach a bow at the top of the pencil, or icicle. The point of the pencil makes the point of the icicle. No one will ever be able to tell that you made the icicle from a pencil. Instead of taping wire ornament hangers to the tops of the pencils you can also use replacement bulb tops. Ball ornaments have a metal cap on top, used to slide the wire in for hanging, and those caps work great for the pencil icicles. If you can find those replacement caps theyre great for this craft. Another method for holding the pencil ornament is to use a single bead. Use a clear bead, ideally in a star burst pattern, to cap the pencil. To do so, fold a piece of stretch cord in half. Slide the ends of the cord through the bead. Glue the bead onto the top of the glittered pencil trapping the cord ends below it. You can also do this step before glittering then glitter the bead as well as the pencil. Got pencils lying around the house? You and the kids get busy making icicles for your Christmas tree. Youll really love the finished project and youll have lots of fun making dozens of them. Be prepared to tell everyone your pencil secret, though, because theyll all want to know where you got the fabulous ornaments!
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