Lebanese Cedar Bead Tree Tutorial

I'm a big fan of the Lebanese Cedar Trees.  These Cedrus libani are a species of cedar native to the mountains of the Mediterranean region.  They have been used by various ancient civilizations, including the Phoenicians, Egyptians and the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh. 

The Lebanon Cedar is the national emblem of Lebanon, and is displayed on the Lebanese flag and coat of arms. Lebanon is sometimes metonymically referred to as the Land of the Cedars.

Today we thought it might be fun to make a little piece of Lebanon to decorate our living room.

Lebanese Cedar Bead Tree Tutorial

Supplies
White canvas
Paper with cedar tree image
Carbon paper
Tracing tool (or pencil works too)
Green beads
Brown beads
Glue gun

First you have to explain to your child what carbon paper is and what it was used for.  (We ended up going online to find photos of typewriters!)  Then, place the carbon paper between the cedar tree image and the canvas and trace out your design.

Your canvas will look like this:

Next, heat up your glue gun and start with the brown beads.   Place a bit of glue and randonly put some brown beads down.

Don't put too much glue on your image at one time since the glue dries very quickly. Please be careful of little fingers as the glue is very hot.  Rigth after I took this photo, my little one burned her finger and we had to ice it right away.  Please be mindful!

After you finish all the brown beads, your canvas will look like this:

Start with the green beads and very slowly go over the image again to cover all the leaves.

Your finished artwork will look like this when you are done:

Here are a couple of close ups of the tree.  You can leave it like this, or put it in a shadow frame like we did in the first photo above.

Lebanese Cedar Bead Tree Tutorial

Lebanese Cedar Bead Tree Tutorial