Make a Paper Necklace

Hello Readers, We're back after a break... Did you miss us? I hope you have been enjoying 'making' in our absence. We've enjoyed a family holiday in sunny Cornwall and my little sisters wedding in the beautiful city of Prague. We've had an amazing few weeks but it has left very little time for making and even less time with my laptop writing posts. But, we are back to our usual routine now and ready to get creative.

This post is about making paper necklaces. This was a hit with Amelie, she does love her bling!! But boys too will enjoy this 'make' creating a Paper Necklace either for themselves or their Mum, Nanna or favourite teacher.

Amelie & I modelling our paper necklace & bracelet

I fear that you may find me repeating myself during my blog posts. But it is always worth mentioning the benefits of 'making'. Many of the pieces we create help develop fine motor skills, essential for correctly holding and controlling a pencil, using scissors and playing musical instruments. Threading beads onto string is a simple and effective way to exercise hand-eye coordination and, in turn, fine tuning your child's fine motor skills. 

Time taken for us to make: 45 mins

Cost to me: Nothing

Original Instructions

What we used: 

• Different paper 
• Glue stick
• Pencils
• Scissors 
• Paints 
• Small paint brush 
• Wool 

What we did:

We gathered different types of paper. Some were coloured sheetsof plain paper, others were torn from magazines, a yellow pages and a phone directory. We then cut the paper into squares approximately 6 ins x 6 ins then rolled each sheet fairly loosely around different pencils then fixed then end edge with glue. 

A selection of paper 

Roll the paper around the pencil and glue the edge to fix

.

When the glue was dry we then slid the pencils out of the paper tubes. Using scissors we cut the tube into approximately 1cm beads. Amelie loves painting anything small so we used the white beads to paint different colours and left them to dry. 

Cut the tube into beads

Completed beads

Paint the white beads

We were then ready to thread our beads onto the wool. The holes in the beads are big enough to thread wool fairly easily, but to help Amelie along we used a plastic needle. We tied the first bead to the end of the wool leaving enough wool to tie the ends together when the necklace is complete.

Tie the first bead to the wool

Thread the beads

Keep adding beads

When all the beads were added we tied the ends together. 

The necklace was then complete and ready to be worn with pride. We also had enough beads to make me a bracelet. These are a great addition to any fancy dress box or made for a specific occasion. They could be colour themed to suit. For example, with Halloween approaching they could be made with orange, green and black.