Mother’s Day is right around the corner. What better gift than something you’ve made and can personalize for your Mom? It’s almost as good as those kindergarten drawings that hung on her fridge for so long.
This is one of the easiest pieces of jewelry you will ever make. It take a bit of time, you have to let the glue and Mod Podge dry, but it’s very easy and inexpensive. You can personalize it in your mother’s favorite colors, add beads, or not, use beading wire, a pretty thin chain or just cotton string. The only limits are your imagination.
Materials
magazines
toothpicks
white glue
Mod Podge
Something for the base of the necklace, string, a chain, wire, etc.
Depending on what you use for the base you may also need a way to close the necklace.
Go through the magazines looking not at the pictures but at the colors on the page. I used pages from a Kohl’s circular that was advertising jewelry for Mother’s Day. Lots of pink and white.
Cut the pages into long thin triangles. I went from side to side on the page. How thick and how long you cut the triangles will determine the thickness and length of your beads. Cut lots of pages, you will want a variety to choose from when you lay out the pattern of the necklace.
Starting at the wide edge of the triangle roll it around a toothpick. I put a thin line of glue down the center of the triangle, a glue stick would work too, this keeps it from moving around as your roll it up.
When you get to the point of the triangle add a dot of glue and smooth it down. If it pops up, just add a little more glue. Now stick the toothpick in something so the bead can dry. Repeat for all your triangles.
Once the glue is dry paint each bead with Mod Podge, I used three coats to make sure they were sturdy. This is the time consuming part, painting all those beads with Mod Podge and letting it dry between coats.
When the beads are dry start playing around with the design. You can use just paper beads or you can add other beads you get at the craft store. I added some round clear beads and a little flower dangle.
Once you have the pattern you want start stringing from one end. I used a thicker cotton string and it went easily through the beads and when I was finished I just knotted it several times. After the knots were tight I threaded the ends of the string back through the beads closest to the knots before cutting it off.
I made the necklace big enough to go over my mother’s head, if you want something smaller you can buy clasps at the craft store and add them to the ends.
There you go! One more homemade gift from your mother’s favorite child.