Child's necklace - tutorial

Do you often find you have to buy a bag of a hundred things when you really only need one or two?  I have beads, buttons and bells all over the place which have been leftover from other projects, and as I am in the midst of yet another sewing room clean-out, and I am highly averse to chucking perfectly good stuff out, all these bits were tossed in a box and thunk over.  Hmmmm, what to do?

While I was still scratching my head about this box of stuff, I was one day browsing about in a local gift shop and saw some very average looking, imported character pendants made of plastic beads and polyester ribbon.  Sophie told me that they were nice and she wanted one.  I replied that they were nasty and said we could do better.  So we went home and made our own.

This was actually an easy and over-with-very-quickly project, which is always great when you are crafting with three year olds.  Sophie's involvement actually was just pushing the ribbon ends through the big hole in the head bead (no needle for her!), which took her a good five minutes for both pendants, but as she will tell you, it was the most important part of the whole project. Of course it was!

We made a clown and a bumblebee and following, I've included the materials and methods we used for each of our pendants.  But, depending on what you have in your own box of stuff, all sorts of beads and bobbles and bits could be stringed together differently to make all sorts of characters.

Clown pendant

What you need

Small jingle bell (the one I've used is about 10mm across)
16mm coloured wooden bead
25mm plain unvarnished bead
Star button
Paper drinking straw
6mm wide craft ribbon -
A needle for stringing the beads (optional)
Craft glue (optional)
Pens for drawing face (I've used a black Artline ink pen and a random marker from my son's pencil case)

What you do

1.  Using the pens, draw a face on the larger, unvarnished bead.  Placing it onto the end of a thick pencil or marker to hold it steady while you draw is helpful.

2.  Cut a length of craft ribbon measuring around 80cm long.  Thread one end through the hole in the jingle bell, and move it to centre of the ribbon.  Even up the ends. (You can do your threading with  a needle, but if small children are helping you, it's probably best they just use their fingers.  Pushing ribbon through beads is a great activity for hand/eye co-ordination!)

3.  Thread both ends through the smaller, coloured bead.

 4.  Thread both ends through the head bead.

5.  Take your button and thread one end of ribbon through one hole and the other end through the second hole.  Slide down so that it sits against the head bead, and then tie with a half knot.

6.  Cut a 2cm of drinking straw.  Thread ends of the ribbon through the straw.  Check the length on  the potential wearer (if possible), adjust and tie ends together to form a necklace.  (Optional:  dab a little bit of glue between the straw and button and let dry.  It's not absolutely necessary, but will help keep the hat together.)

Bumble bee pendant

What you need

Small jingle bell (again, 10mm)
16mm coloured wooden bead
25mm plain unvarnished bead
Strip of tulle, about 5cm wide and 10cm long (or use stiff ribbon)
Black drinking straw
2 x 5mm black plastic beads
6mm wide craft ribbon -
A needle for stringing the beads (optional)
Craft glue (optional)
Pens for drawing face

What you do

1.  Follow steps 1 - 3 of instructions for clown pendant.

 2.  Tie the tulle strip around the ribbon to form wings.  Trim ends if needed.  Slide toward coloured bead.

3.  Thread both ends of ribbon through the head bead.

4.  Cut a 2.5cm length of drinking straw.  Thread both ends of the ribbon through the drinking straw and slide into head bead.  Then thread one of the small black beads onto one end of ribbon and the other black bead onto the second end of ribbon.

5.  Again,check the length and knot off into a necklace.  Again, some glue at where the tulle is knotted will keep it from unravelling and help stop the beads from swivelling about.

And, finished....

Time to hang out with a new friend.

These would make fun little trinkets to sell at school or church fetes, or cute little thank you or Christmas gifts for teachers (although adults may prefer them as a key ring or a bag charm).  Package them up nice in cellophane bags with some sparkly star bling (and be sure to add a label that gratuitously promotes your blog).