DIY Dream Catchers

I did a Birthday party at our home for our 8 year old Ella. I had looked into going somewhere, because 10 little girls in a 1200 square foot house seemed a bit tight. Then I thought I should not let the size of our home hold us back from enjoying it and doing what she wanted to do. Ella wanted to have a “late night”. So we invited  some friends over and made dream catchers, I fed them french toast for dinner with fruit and sausage, we watched the movie Pan (which is similar to Peter Pan, we all loved it) then played our favorite birthday game “who knows Ella best” you can find it HERE and did a little dancing. We topped the night off with brownies and mint ice-cream as per the birthday girls request. The dream catchers were the highlight of the night, a big hit.

This is all that you need for the dream catchers-

Fabric Scraps- ripped into the size you want, I did mine about 1″-2″ (my friend gave me all of these leftover fabrics that she had and it saved me a lot! Make sure to ask around to see if any friends have any scraps.)

Macrame Ring– I found mine at Hobby Lobby like these HERE

Paper Doilies- I really wanted to do fabric dollies, but I didn’t research before hand and went to buy some at Joanns and some were ringing up for $2.50 each and some were $5.00 each. I didn’t want to spend that much for 10 girls. I found paper doilies like THIS that were the same price for one fabric doily, they were perfect, we just doubled them up so they wouldn’t rip when attaching them to the ring.

Fabric Doilies– I went online and found THESE fabric doilies that were died assorted colors. She sells them in assorted sizes of about 10 for around $10. Some of the girls just used the fabric doilies rather than the paper and others glued the fabric doilies over the paper to add some depth. You can find others if you search HERE on Etsy. Keep in mind you want your doily smaller than your macrame ring, if you do a fabric doily it will stretch.

Thin String- to attach the doily to the ring

Feathers- and anything else extra you want to add, some of the girls strung beads to the fabric on the bottom

Fabric Glue

When I made my strips I just cut about an inch or two along the longer side then ripped it to create a strip.

The girls were very excited about this project. When the girls started showing up I had them pick out the fabrics they waned to use and the doilies. It was pretty funny to see how quickly or not so quickly some girls picked up on the craft.

First take one strip and fold it around your macrame ring. You can get it to stay by holding it in place, but the glue did help to get it to stick. You can use fabric glue, I did on a few but super glue held a little better.

Wrap the entire ring with the fabric, trying to keep it tight to the ring the entire time.

Start to loop around your pieces of fabric on the bottom. All of the girls looked so unique. Most of us used about 5-8 pieces of fabric. After you wrap all the fabric around. You can attach your doily. I just poked string through and wove it around trying to keep the doily in the center. It was about half of the girls who could do this part on their own, I did the ones that struggled with it.

I told the girls the folklore about dream catchers and how they catch your bad dreams. My girls wanted them hung above their beds right away.

This one Ella made, she wanted blues, her favorite color. We did the paper doily as the larger one then used fabric glue to attach the fabric doily.

I laughed when I was hanging it next to her “Wild and Free” art, because she totally wanted to do what she wanted and didn’t want any of my suggestions or pressure on her color selection.

This is Lola’s. Lola is 5 and needed a lot more help with it. Let’s just say she was a good at overseeing and picking what she wanted for the project.

I made one all cream and spray painted my fabric doily with my favorite gold spray paint.

They are a really easy and fun project to do. I would say the age someone can do it on their own is eight, from my experience with ten little girls.

You can see more of my daughters shared bedroom HERE.

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