DIY Lace Wedding Dreamcatchers

Wedding season 2018 is already upon us, and I’m so excited to welcome it back by finally sharing some details from our wedding back in August!! Ruffled, a gorgeous wedding blog focused on creative couples and weddings, has featured our llama-licious wedding on their site today and we are so freaking excited!

Naturally, there were plenty of DIYed elements of our wedding decor and naturally, I documented the making of a couple of them in case you or anyone you know would like to recreate these fun and festive projects!

First up are the lace dreamcatchers my wonderful bridal shower guests made as a contribution to the wedding decor! I wanted to display them all together as an installation and they turned out to be the perfect decoration for my bedeken chair, which was more like a throne than anything. Ha! (The chair belongs to our venue, WoodsEdge Farm, and served as the perfect seat for this part of the wedding.)

For those unfamiliar with traditional Jewish wedding customs, a bedeken is when the groom sees the bride before the ceremony to ensure that he has the right girl. It’s a custom that originates from the bible, and serves as a time for the bride to greet her guests, receive well wishes from them and grant them blessings in return.

You can get super creative with this easy craft by adding any fabric or decorations that suit your taste. There was a lace theme throughout our decor, so we stuck with three different types of white lace for the center of the dreamcatchers. We also used assorted yarns and ribbons to hang from them, and punctuated the dreamcatchers with feathers to add an element of earthiness. The resulting mix of creamy dreamcatchers couldn’t have been more perfect!

TO MAKE THIS PROJECT, YOU’LL NEED:

• Embroidery hoops in all different sizes
• Assorted lace
• Assorted ribbons & yarn
• Feathers
• Scissors
• Embroidery floss (optional)
• Yarn needle (optional)

The sky is the limit with this project. You can layer lace, opt to wrap yarn around the face of your dreamcatcher, or even do both. The idea is to make an assortment of dreamcatchers from the same set of materials that all look different from one another, but when they come together look stunning due to their comment color palette and visual elements. In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to make a simple design that features a swatch of lace in the center of the dreamcatcher, assorted yarn and ribbons hanging down, and feathers attached to the fringe.

Start by cutting about 10 pieces of assorted yarns and ribbons to more or less the same length. They can be as long or short as you like. In this case, mine were about 18″. Separate the two rings of your embroidery hoop and tie your yarns and ribbons onto the bottom of the outer ring in whatever pattern you like.

Next, attach your feathers to the strands of yarn in a haphazard pattern. I found the easiest way to secure the feathers so that they’re all pointing down is to first tie a loose knot in your yarn where you want the feather to go, leave the loop of the knot open, and insert the feather into the knot before pulling the knot tight.

Last, place the inner ring on top of your lace and trim a circle about 1″ from the ring all the way around. Place the circle of lace on top of the inner ring and then place the outer ring over the lace, fitting it around the small ring. Pull the lace nice and taught, then turn the screw at the top of the outer ring to secure it in place. Trim off any excess lace that’s protruding in the back. Tie a piece of excess yarn to the screw to hang it anywhere you like.

And that’s it! Like I said, you can make any design you like with this simple dreamcatcher-inspired technique. Some of my favorites that my guests made included feathers sewed onto the lace and yarn wrapped around the face of the dreamcatcher like a spider web. So stunning!

Don’t forget to check out these details and more over on our Ruffled post, and be sure to check out our other wedding DIY: our Wedding Cake Piñata! Special thanks to Redfield Photography for the gorgeous detail shots of the dreamcatchers in action!

Peace, love & neon,
Marisa