DIY Colour-Popping Eye of God Crafts 24 August 2014  |  Nicola

The best thing about DIY decorations is that you can make them as bright and colourful as you like; from sugary sweet pastel garlands to acid bright table centrepieces, homemade decorations have never been more popular or easy to make. Mexican Eye of God ornaments have been popular for years (and you might even remember making them in art class at school!), and you can make them in minutes using any kind of coloured yarn or cotton, and wooden sticks that are a similar size.

You Will Need:

Wooden sticks of various sizes, depending on what size decorations you want to make – we used driftwood sticks which worked nicely

Coloured yarn or cotton – we used paper yarn, which worked really well and had a lovely rustic-style finish

Trimmings, beads, buttons and other small decorative items

Strong glue (if desired)

1. Take two sticks of a similar size and lay them into a cross shape. If you’re not sure you’ll be able to keep them together while wrapping the yarn around them, glue in place and leave to dry.

2. Choose which colour you want your ‘eye’ to be, and begin wrapping the yarn around the centre of the sticks, criss-crossing it as you go, until it’s completely covered.

3. Working in an anti-clockwise direction, wrap your yarn around one stick, then move across to the next one. Keep wrapping and turning, until you have something that looks like this:

4. To change colour, simply fasten the new yarn to the old one, and continue wrapping in the same way.

5. Carry on until you’ve almost covered the sticks, then fasten off the yarn into a loop so you can hang your Eye of God up.

6. Using the glue, add some beads or other decorations onto the ends of the sticks and leave to dry.

Top Tips

1. To vary the shape of your Eye of God, experiment with using different amounts of sticks – three makes a great hexagon, four would make an octagon and so on.

2. Rather than just hanging your decorations on the wall, make a stack of them the same size, and then thread them onto some string along with some beads to make a garland – perfect for birthdays or late summer parties!

3. Make an extra-small Eye of God, and then glue a corsage-back onto the reverse to make it into a badge for tops and bags.