Earth Day & Mother's Day: One project! :)

We use recycled colorful magazine pages to create beautiful beads for our Mother's Day necklaces.
Here is a pic-tutorial:  (Is that even a word?)    
 Earth Day & Mother's Day... Together At Last!

This project is almost FREE.
Start by cutting lots of colorful triangles that are about 1 1/4"-1 1/2" wide by 3"-5" long.
Gather some round toothpicks, white glue, and stretchy beading elastic (find it at Michael's).

Begin by rolling the shortest end of the triangle tightly on the toothpick.  

(No glue yet.)

Younger students might have better results by using a wooden skewer 

instead of a toothpick, but everyone of my kindergarteners have been

 able to do this project for the past 3 years using round toothpicks..  

Sometimes it takes a few tries to get the hang of keeping the wrapping tight, 

but they do eventually get it.  :)

Keep wrapping, keep it tight!

Here is where you add a line of white glue.  Keep wrapping and don't worry if the glue oozes out.  

Wrap to the end & add a little glue to the surface of the bead to seal it.  

Slide the bead off of the toothpick and allow it to dry on some wax paper or in a waxed paper cup.

Use elastic beading thread to string your paper beads.  

Add other little beads to make a cool pattern.

Just tie off the end with a few good knots.  

Students like to use a color theme, like all blues, or all earth tones.  

Our moms loved these soooo much and actually wear them!

Let me know if you have any questions.  :)

We make these necklaces around Earth Day and save them for Mother's Day when we also present our moms with a beautiful, handmade hat, made by their child.  I'll post about that this week.  :)