Halloween Chandelier

        Usually at this time of year I paint a painting as a birthday gift for my friend. However, I didn't have the time to paint anything gift worthy so I decided I would craft instead! I got the inspiration for this from a project I saw here on Dollar Store Crafts that involved making a chandelier out of plastic beads and a wire bowl frame thing. However, being that it is almost winter, I couldn't find the wire bowl thing that is normally used for some sort of floral arrangement. So, I used my creative mind and did the project completely my own way. Here are the materials I used...

         All of this stuff came from the Dollar Tree (besides the spray paint which can be found at ACO or Home Depot). I also used two or three 6 packs of the beads, detatched them, and hung them on a hanger like so...

         Next, I went out to the ol garage and hung up the hanger, the skeletons, and the rope to be painted.

         I just spray painted those and waited for them to dry. Once dry I got out the glue gun and got to work. I first glued the beads to the mesh basket. Sorry for not taking photos of the process but I was totally in the zone. There was a thick wire handle on the mesh basket that I bent into a circle and attached the beads to on the top. This proved to be very difficult, getting the beads to all hang evenly from the wire circle to the basket. It was pretty crooked at first and took a lot of taking apart and putting back together. If you have an easier way to do this, please feel free to post it!

 Next I cut the cheese cloth stuff into strips, bunched them, tied them to the top, and then glued them where they touched the basket. Also I decided to tie them together at the bottom instead of having them just hang but it looks cool either way. Lastly I added the glow-in-the-dark spiders and the skeletons here and there, making it look all fancy.

          My husband said it looked too cone-like so as an after thought I tied a piece of a bead strand around it to give it more shape.

Here is a complete list of the stuff you'll need for this project.

-Mesh Basket
-A piece of thick wire or a piece of a wire hanger shaped into a small, 2-3in. circle.
-Pliers (if you aren't strong enough to bend the wire with your hands)
- Glue Gun
- Spray paint
- approx 12 Mardi Gras beads
- 4 plastic skeletons
- 12 Glow-in-the-dark spiders
- 1 package of Black cheese cloth
- Clothes line rope

That's everything! You can really get creative with this adding almost any kind of Halloween goodies you can find and spray painting them to match. I saw some fake crows at the dollar store that I wish I got so I could have added one to the center of the basket but ahh well. Also, I wanted to add some sort of lights to it but didn't have the time. If you do make this project please take pictures and show me your version, I'd love to see different takes on it!!

            Look at Donovan creeping in the background hehe.