The Project Lady: Tutorial for Making a Hanging Mistletoe

I love a fun tradition. I wasn't sure where or when the tradition of kissing under the mistletoe began so I looked up 'Mistletoe' on Wikipedia.org.

According to ancient Christmas custom, a man and a woman who meet under a hanging of mistletoe were obliged to kiss. The custom may be of Scandinavian origin. It was described in 1820 by American author Washington Irving in his The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.:

"The mistletoe is still hung up in farm-houses and kitchens at Christmas, and the young men have the privilege of kissing the girls under it, plucking each time a berry from the bush. When the berries are all plucked the privilege ceases."

Cut 3 pieces of green wire that are about 10"-long and a 5"-long piece of stem wire. Cut a piece of foliage that makes a little bundle about the size of your hands cupped together.

Make your 'berry' bunches by using your green wire, white beads and small clear beads. Put one white and clear bead together in the center of your wire and thread the end from the clear bead back up through the white bead (the clear bead keeps your wire from pulling out). Twist both wires together about 3/4" from the top of your white bead.

To keep everything tight together, cross your wire ends under the opposite side and back up. Twist the remaining ends together all the way up.

Plug in your hot glue gun about now. Do the same steps above until you have 3 bunches of 'berries'. I decided to have my 3rd just a single berry so my bunches weren't too overpowering :)

Arrange your berries inside your leaves so it looks just how you'd like it. Where my fingers are now is where you'll put a little bit of hotglue to hold wire down.

Next wrap your tape around your stem/wire ends a few time while the glue is still warm to make sure everything cools tight together. Trim off any long wire ends that are poking out.

Bend your wire stem in half and glue the ends against your leaf stem.

Continue wrapping the tape around everything tightly. When I'm almost done I cut my tape so I have a 5"-long tail so I can wrap it in between my wire stem to finish it off.