Andrea Rosenfeld, professional artist, Reiki practitioner, and recycler thought to add her creative juices to this year’s wonderful event by offering a children’s necklace made from recycled paper and crayons. As a bonus, they can give the remaining crayon pendants to friends to color with.
It’s important to show children how they can connect with the earth and protect it. By taking items that would normally just add to the massive landfills and turning them into an art piece to wear or to give as a gift, they will hopefully move away from a “throw away” culture and see the potential beauty in everyday items
Handmade Paper Bead and Recycled Crayon Necklace
This necklace can be fashioned with many different types of paper and any combination of colors to go with special outfits or for special occasions. Use strips of gift-wrap, school papers, newspaper, the comics, or brown paper bags decorated to your liking with permanent markers.
What you’ll need for the paper beads:
- Paper (It can be gift-wrap, the comics, an advertisement, school papers, catalogs, decorated newsprint, scrap booking paper, or a brown paper bag.)
- Clean white paper towel for laying out beads
- Child-friendly scissors
- White glue
- Two small cylinders, such as ink refills from an old pen; one could hold the drying beads while the other is used to wrap the new beads.
- Natural hemp or cotton string
Directions for the paper beads:
1. Cut long triangular strips of paper (approximately ten inches long), keeping one end approximately half inch and the other end down to a point.
2. Beginning with the wide end, wrap it around the cylinder and roll it until one inch remains. Apply glue to the last inch of the paper bead and finish rolling, using your fingers to rub the excess glue all over the bead, covering it completely. Set on the second old pen or cylinder on the clean towel to dry.
3. Use the other cylinder to repeat this step with another piece of paper. After two or three minutes, remove the first bead from the resting cylinder and set aside on flat surface for complete drying. Continue in this manner until you’ve made as many beads as you want. Don’t worry about uniform sized beads. It’s fun if they are a bit different.
