Old-Fashioned Dream-Catcher

The night air is filled with dreams, both good and bad. When a dream-catcher is hung near the bed where you lie sleeping, it catches the dreams as they pass by. The good dreams, knowing how to pass through the dream-catcher, make their way through the center hole and down the feathers so that they may fall gently into the sleeping mind of the person below. The bad dreams, not knowing how to pass through it, get tangled in the net and are destroyed by the first light of the new day.

I've always been interested in making things that relate to my Native American culture. A dream-catcher, being something I've never made before and that interested me, I decided I'd give it a try!

Materials:

-Branch from a small tree or bush (long with a small diameter)

-Electrical tape or duct tape

-Hot Glue gun

-String of some sort (I used twine to give it an older look)

-Leather for straps

-Feathers and/or other decorative items

First, cut off your desired branch and shave the little twigs off of it.

Next, you'll need to peel the bark off to reveal the inside of the branch.

Lastly, take your knife and finish it up by making it smooth (cutting down the little extrusions from the twigs).

I used a weight to wrap the branch around to give it a circular shape. Since the branch is still wet, it should bend pretty easily.

So start by wrapping the branch around your object and making marks on each side. Then line those up and tape the sides together. Put the taped up branch back around the object for it to dry ( I let mine dry over night and it held its shape when I removed the tape in the morning).

When its all dry, mark where you are going to cut it ( I cut mine at an angle so I had more surface area for the glue to hold it together), and then cut it.

When you know it is going to fit together, you can glue it. I used a C-clamp to keep the space between each side as small as possible. Because of this, it pushed glue out the sides causing me to have to clean it up.

Unless you prefer to free-hand the spacing in between the points, measure the circumference and divide it by however many points you want. Then make a string that length and mark it on the branch until you make your way around.

To start weaving, tie a knot on one of the marked points and bring the string over to the next point (making your way to the left). You will be using a simple slip-knot to make this, so take the string and run it over the top of the branch and then back under it but keep it around the branch (this may be a little confusing so look at the pictures for a visual aid), and then continue to the next point.

Close it off by tying a knot around the starting point.

Start the next layer in the center of one of the chords. Finish it the same way as the last layer.

Continue this same method until it gets too small to add more layers.

Instead of using string to attach the feathers I chose to use leather. Cut thin strips of leather (1/8 to 1/4 in).

For the top strip, the one used to hold it up on the wall, tie the ends together and fasten it around the top. For the bottom three, you can just fasten it without tying the bottom.

Take some small strips of leather and wrap it around each of the three leather strips and the feathers. To finish just trim those strips and hang it up!

Now that you have completed your "Old-Fashioned Dream-Catcher", you can hang it up and start catching your bad dreams!... or just enjoy the beauty and satisfaction of your newly created artwork! Thanks for reading and good luck on making your "Old-Fashioned Dream-Catcher"!