How to create a dreamcatcher

Back in the days when Max was just a twinkle in his daddy's eye, we took a trip of a lifetime and travelled Route 66.  Along the way, I bought a beautiful little dream catcher.  To this day it is one of my most treasured items, so when my son took a big shine to it and asked to have it in his room, I gave a little smile and said maybe!

I know how that sounds, but he's 4, and with all the best intentions in the world, 4-year-old hands, idle or not make their way around things, in things and oh, broken things.  So I hung up my dream catcher in his room then I came across this infographic on Pinterest!!

(The actual image is much larger when you click through).

So I figured I'd get Max to help me make one for him (and yes, so I can swap it out for my little one).

I bought the rings off eBay but have since seen that The Works actually do a complete dream catcher set!

I then gave Max the task to keep an eye out for any large bird feathers that he comes across on his travels, and with much pride in himself, he came home from the park the other day with 4 large black ones and a white one.  We gave them a good wash up and left them out to dry.

Max picked out his ribbon to cover the ring and I set about wrapping this around - oh my goodness it took all evening!  I don't know if it was because I was tired, rubbish at wrapping ribbon around or just rubbish!

I used the infographic above to give me an idea on how to thread the cord through the hoop, and it was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be, even though my end result is not as neat, but it has the authentic look (that's what I'm going with anyway)!

Once the cord was threaded, we raided the jewellery making drawer and picked out some beads to hang with the feathers and my son also spotted the Pandora style beads that he wanted in the middle of his catcher (?!).  After staring at the beads for 10 minutes I realised I could just thread these through!

I tied some cord off the bottom of the ring and used the beads to hold the feathers in place.  I was going to glue these but found the feather and cord were quite a snug fit so I've left that... for now.

And that's basically it.   Until Max then found some coloured feathers in his craft box (honestly, I don't know how this stuff makes its way in my house...) so we added more feathers to the bottom and I think it finishes the dream catcher off nicely!

What do you think?

Most importantly, my son loves his new catcher (mainly because it's bigger than mine!) and so I get to keep my little one tucked up out the way of little hands, and Max gets to have his crazy, bright coloured one on full display in his room for him to hold, hang up and play with as much as he liked.