Christmas Gift Idea - Gemstone Trees

It's December, the busiest month of the year! It's time for Christmas shopping, malls are too crowded and here in Manila, there are traffic jams everywhere. I haven't done my shopping yet, I know it's already a bit late but it's still not on my schedule, but hey, I always love my last-minute runs to the mall. 

I know I should be blogging about DIY gift ideas or holiday ornaments but I'm too swamped with craft projects as of the moment and I'm forgetting to take pictures and document what I'm working on. Right now, I'm pretty busy with making our Christmas giveaways. My mom, like me, also makes her own gifts for her friends. This year, she's making gemstone trees and she has kindly shared her projects with us.

This is a tutorial for making hanging cherry blossoms. Of course you can have your own choice of style and gemstones to make your own version and this will be a good guide for that masterpiece you're planning to create.

Supplies needed:

Instructions:

The cherry quartz stones are the ones used here first.

On step 4, make several groups of stones depending on the length of the branch you want to make but it's recommended to make it an odd number so you would have a center. On this project, as shown above, there are 13 groups so there is one group as the center and 6 groups on either side. 

It is recommended to make it tight so your branches wouldn't be soft and squishy.

And the hanging cherry blossoms tree is done. This would make a great gift, don't you think? 

My mom made several other gemstone trees. These are done using the same process as the tutorial above with maybe just a few tweaks here and there depending on the design. My favorites are the purple ones that are mounted on natural amethyst rocks, they're simply gorgeous. 

Are you ready to make your own gemstone tree? 

Thank you for dropping by!

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How to Make a Gemstone Tree

This entry is a bit different from what I usually post because this time I'm gonna be sharing not my creation, but one of my mom's. It was nice of her to provide pictures of the steps she did to come up with this lovely little tree. This is made from rose quartz.

To make a tree similar to this you will need:

Jewelry wire (the gauge used on this is 24)

Gemstones of your choice

Floral wrapping tape

Floral stem wire

Measuring tape

Pliers and wire cutter
Craft glue (E6000 or similar)

Pebbles

Decorative pot (like a bonsai pot or shallow vase)

  

 

 

INSTRUCTIONS

Step 1: String gems onto the jewelry wire, estimate how many you will be needing for each branch or you can just string lots since you will keep on adding gems for your next branches anyway. For this, each branch has 5 clusters with 3 gems each, so 15 gems per branch.

Step 2: Leave about 3 inches of wire for the stem before the first group of gems, 3 gems, then twist the wire to secure the gems in place. 

Step 3: .Make 4 more groups of gems about half to 1 cm apart, there's no need to be too precise. Twist the wire from both sides of the gems together to form a single stem, cut the wire.

 

Step 4: Make more branches of gemstones enough for the size of the tree you want to make.

Step 5: Twist two branches together to form a branch with thicker stem. If you want branches with stems of different thickness, you can leave some of the original ones without twisting two together.

Step 6: Wrap the stems with floral tape.

 

Step 7: Make the trunk using the floral stem wire. Decide how thick and long you want the trunk to be, combine the stem wires together and wrap with floral tape. Leave about 5 to 6 inches of unwrapped stem wires, these will serve as the roots to be glued to the vase.

 

Step 8: Attach the branches to the trunk starting from the top using your craft glue and wrap with floral tape. Do this one branch at a time - glue a branch, wrap with floral tape (don't cut the tape, just continue to the next branch), glue another branch, wrap with floral tape, and so on.

You can scatter the branches evenly around the trunk or you can put more on one side for a different look, it's all up to you.

 

Step 9: Glue the roots to the vase, make sure to put generous amount of glue to secure the tree. Add the pebbles to cover the roots. It's recommended to also glue all the pebbles so they would stay in place specially when you're planning to ship them. You can add and glue some gems on top of the pebbles to make it look like there are fallen leaves.

And, it's done. This is about 9.5 inches in height. I love the bonsai look. The vase or the pot used looks perfect with the rest of the tree.

This is another one of my mom's gemstone trees, with a different style and this one's made with cherry quartz. The possibilities are endless with this craft, you can choose what gemstone or wire color to use, the height of the tree, or the direction of the branches. You can let real trees inspire you and try to make your creations look like them. I'll be making one soon, too, and I'm going for a cherry blossom tree, or a tree in the winter covered with snow maybe.

Thank you for visiting. Have a great day!

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