Lois,

I live in Texas but am barbed wire ignorant. I have only seen the word crafts before (Howdy ect.).

I would imagine, laying out a paper pattern onto wood; and using nails to form the words; then bending the wire with plyers. Dont forget protective gloves.

I also would go to google and type "How barbed wire crafts".

Susie

I have a heart from barb wire(see garden junk indoor post) and a nice scar from when i was a child.I stayed over night at a friends and we were playing hide and seek. I ran into her barb wire fence at dusk and it was pretty scary. ER stitches,,,, I have great respect for the stuff and I admit it scares me!

Well, I've had no experience with barbed wire, but I would imagine you need some good gloves and some strong pliers to bend and twist the wire with. I would think like Susie that you could use a paper pattern to make whatever design or word you wanted and bend the wire to fit. I'm sure that some of our other GJer's will come through with more advice! Let us see what you come up with!

since most of the barb wire I have seen is pretty stiff stuff, maybe you could cut small pieces to form letters for your words

then use one of those small craft staple guns to staple the letters onto your piece of wood. we bought one recently at home depot and I don't think it was too much.

Ramona

Here is a link that might be useful: MY BLOG

My advice, be very careful. My experience with barbed wire is all childhood, cow pastures etc, etc. I'm sure with careful planning letters could be done. Since it is wire painting diff colors would be interesting.

Kathy

Thanks for all the advice, I have some barb wire that is not as stiff as some of the fencing wire. I plan on using that. I did do a google search and did find a few places with ideas. Was hoping someone had done this and had some pictures. I do plan on using gloves,lol, thanks for that advice. I have done some barb wire wreaths that turned out ok. I guess I am just going to go for it and see how it turns out. ~~Lois

Has your barbed wire been in contact with the soil? If it has you might want to be sure that your tetanus shot is up to date. If, however, it's been hanging up or on a spool and not touching the soil for at least a couple of years, you're probably safe.
Wear a long sleeve tough/tightly woven fabric shirt when you work with the stuff, along with gloves of course. And keep in mind that the loose ends of barbed wire often seem to have a mind of their own. They love to come up out of nowhere and smack you in the face. Voice of experience talking there......

DH & I were at a craft show a couple wks ago...and I bought these barbed wire balls...the lady was crafting some "flowers" while manning her booth...could not believe it! I had bought a heart from here a couple yrs. ago. After my purchase, DH says, "we have lots of barbed wire at home!" ... yeah, right, but how do you like working with it? Mending fences was enough! I put these 2 balls out in the wooden box on the tree stumps where the new bird arbor sanctuary is located. Thought of trying lights...but, Nah, grapevine balls are better...I had one of those & on the lookout for more. These barbed ones are cool though! Jeanne S. ... Good luck, loislaney...maybe Superman can help you out! :-) (bet you haven't heard that before!) Ugh!

{{gwi:199405}}

I think I saw something on a piece of wood once & all you saw was the barbed wire. Small holes were drilled & wire matching color of barbed wire went through to back of board. This would be very neat & good way to do letters. Staples would detract from the rustic look. Old Reminisce magazines might have pic.Dec-Jan 2009 Country Woman magazine has a star of barbed wire page 43 & it is neat, poem on back cover also about barbed wire! My experience with barbed wire was when I was going home from the 1 room schoolhouse I went to & I was alone & walking as fast as I could when pack of dogs seemed to come out of nowhere!! I ran but they were gaining, there were 3-4 dogs but they were not dogs I knew & I knew all the dogs around so I had to come up with a plan fast, I ran into the ditch & saw a place in the fence that was damaged & I went through & grabbed a couple of handfuls of rough weeds & put in the hole I ran to the water by the golf course, my leg felt wet & I was bleeding,I got where I could go out into the water if I had to & sat & waited in the cattails, finally it seemed safe & I ran the block home. I still have a 4 in. scar, I cleaned it & pulled it together & it's just a line now. No plans to work with any barbed wire ever!! Jan

Barb wire comes in a few different denseness some are more plyable then others. I love the barb wire balls, I wonder if you couldn't take a string of lights and just tuck them inside the ball like you would a jar and light them that way. I think that would be very pretty and save wear and tear on your hands. :)

Jeanne,
Very cool barbed balls. How was the lady you saw making them?

Jan,
OMG, what a frightening thing for a child to experience. You were a very 'nature savy' little one to have escaped. Kids here in the burbs squeel and cry when my little 10" tall Yorkie runs up to them wagging his tail. If they would have had the experience that you did they would just lay down and get attacked. It is a different world these days. I include myself in the group of not being more knowledgeable about nature. I was "terrified" of a 6 inch snake and made Hubs kill it.

I remember reading a much older thread where they used barbed wire on bottle bugs for the wings. Looked real cool, but I think the artist said the barbed wire was hard to work with.

Jeanne those barbed wire balls are fantastic! That's a great use for the wire. I wonder how hard they are to make? They look really cool. ~tenderlee

don't they make a barbed wire that has rounded tips on the barbs??? So they aren't sharp?

Why am I thinking I've seen that somewhere...?

patti

susiewantsroses...I can't even remember how the lady was making them...I was so in awe of all of her work...baskets, wreaths, stars & I spotted the balls! But, she was just standing there and then showed me the single flower shape she was working on at the moment...I think she had some heavy duty tool in her hand??? Great stuff!

tennessetrash...I don't think I could make them myself...not enough hand strength...my DH made a star after I bought one and he could do it...got poked some, too!

loislaney...thanks for posting this...glad you are going to try it...and give us a pic when you're done...I think your idea is wonderful! Jeanne S.

How is your barb wire crafts going. I noticed this was sent in 2008. I have about 500 feet of antique barb wire 1883 Buckthorn wire. It would be great for this kind of craft. We are wanting to sell this. Are you interested?