Recycle, Re-use, & Remember Mother's Day!

And A GR8 Earth Day Activity Too!

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 get better results using a wooden skewer 

instead of a toothpick, but everyone of my kindergarteners were able to do this project using round toothpicks..  

Sometimes it takes a few tries to get the hang of it. 
They need to keep wrapping tightly.

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.  

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

After each student makes 10 beads, have them use elastic beading thread to string the paper beads along with small glass beads to create a necklace or bracelet.  

Use the other little beads to make cool patterns.

Just tie off the end with a few good knots.  

Students like to use color themes, 

like using all blue triangles, or all earth tones.  

Our moms loved these soooo much and actually wear them!

We make these necklaces around Earth Day and save them for Mother's Day.