EcoKid’s New Necklace

I love this craft because the product is super cute AND the materials are green (as in eco-friendly.) And of course, like all the crafts we do, it’s loads of fun!

First, you chop up some toilet paper rolls (ours are brown because we use recycled, unbleached tissue.) I do this myself, as fairly large, not very child-friendly scissors are required to get through the rolls.

Then you paint the ‘beads’. Use as many or as few colours as you want.

EcoKid gets really messy when she paints, so we always pop her in a paint smock first. Because of a recent fingerpainting session with her dad, on this occasion she needed to paint her hands as well as her beads, so things got extra messy. The paint smock is an incredible invention!
You then need to allow the paint to dry. The stuff we used is not particularly quick-drying and EcoKid also applied it fairly thickly, so we let our beads sit overnight.
Once they’re dry, it’s time for glitter glue to really glam up the beads.
I gave EcoKid paint brushed to apply her glitter glue; however, you can use any number of application methods successfully here. Sponge-stamping the glitter glue would have an interesting effect, I think.
Once the glitter glue has dried, which in our case happened much faster than did the previous day’s paint drying, you can string the beads. We used a gorgeous length of silky blue ribbon that I’d received with a birthday gift. EcoKid wanted all her beads on one ribbon, so we cut it quite long.

Pushing and pulling the ribbon through the beads is a great fine motor activity for young ones, but they will likely need some help.
Once you’ve strung all the beads you want, tie your ribbon in a loose knot and hang it around the neck of your little jeweller.

In EcoKid’s case, she went for a sash-like effect…

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