How to Make Indian Corn Pins From Triangle Beads
These fun little Indian corn pin crafts are great for fundraiser items for Native youth groups, as a Thanksgiving-themed craft project to give as gifts, or even just as a take-home craft for students learning about Thanksgiving or Native Americans. They are made with simple and inexpensive plastic triangle beads, sometimes called tri-beads, and other common craft materials you can find at your local craft store or even Wal-Mart. You can choose whether to make them by gluing your corn cob onto a pin back, or to make the process simpler, simply adding a safety pin to the Indian corn.
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Things You'll Need
- Brown pipe cleaners
- Craft pin backs or safety pins
- Triangle beads in brown, orange, white, beige and yellow
- Matching ribbons
- Hot glue, if needed
Instructions
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Cut three pieces of brown pipe cleaner to the length you want the pin to be; about two or three inches is probably as large as will be practical. While you can make them as small as one inch, these are more difficult to twist together.
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Hold the pieces of pipe cleaner so that the ends are even, and twist one end of the bunch together so you have a platform to start beading on. Tie a short piece of ribbon—perhaps gold or red—into a bow on the twisted end, if desired, for more decoration and to help hold the stems together.
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3
Thread the triangle beads onto the pipe cleaner pieces. Place one point of the bead pointing in toward the center of the bunch, for better shaping of the corn cob. Mix the colors up, as with Indian corn kernels. It’s easiest to do one bead on each stem, and then move on to another layer of beads. You should be able to fit 8 or 10 beads on each 2-inch pipe cleaner piece if you fit them together snugly.
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When you reach the top of the bunch, leave enough room to twist the pipe cleaners together again. Twist the remaining stems together to hold the beads on, and fold the loose ends inward to the center of the bunch to make a semi-cone shape at the tip of the corn cob. Tie another piece of ribbon at this end if desired, or you can weave a thin ribbon in and out of the pipe cleaner tips.
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5
Attach your Indian corn creation to a pin back using hot glue, if you want the pin to be a brooch-style pin. Let it dry according to glue directions. Alternately, you can forgo the gluing and run a safety pin through one end or the other so that the corn dangles from it for a medal-type pin.
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Tips & Warnings
If you want to make a more delicate, smaller and more expensive version of these pins, try the same process with copper beading wire and triangle seed beads.
