How To: Make a Dreamcatcher

This is your How To guide on making your very own dreamcatcher :)

BUT FIRST - a little background on the legend of the dreamcatcher...

Dreamcatchers are one of the most fascinating traditions of Native Americans. The traditional dreamcatcher was intended to protect the sleeping individual from negative dreams, while letting positive dreams through. The positive dreams would slip through the hole in the center of the dream catcher, and glide down the feathers to the sleeping person below. The negative dreams would get caught up in the web, and expire when the first rays of the sun struck them.
I've recently jumped the bandwagon on the Native American design trend so I'm fascinated by these little  hoops.  Not to mention they'll look awesome in my dorm room!

Step One:

Take some leather and wind it around your hoop of any size.

Hint - take a clothes pin and pin the top of the hoop to secure the leather while you work all around.

  

Step Two:

Take some sinew (it's like a sticky twine) and measure out about 3 arm spans for bigger hoops and 1 to 2 1/2 for smaller hoops. Then, weave the sinew around the hoop and through itself to create a spider web effect. 

Warning - this may take a few tries...it did for me.

Step Three:

Finishing out your dreamcatcher.

Take some feathers, beads, and leftover leather to create a gateway for good dreams to come back to you :)

Tie a strand of leather to the bottom of the dreamcatcher and then take a bead and slip it up the strand.  Take some feathers and secure them into the bead.  Make any design you want and repeat however many times you want along the bottom of the catcher.

  

Presto Pesto...there you have it, a dreamcatcher :)

...Side Note

To make an inner charm like the one above: Before you tie off the sinew, take some beads and other charms to thread through in the center.  THEN tie off the sinew.  

Sweet dreams :)