Cardboard "Bead" Necklaces

I recently saw this fabulous post on painted bead necklaces by fellow Rockin' Art Mom ArtBar Blog.  Her students painted such beautiful wooden bead and cardboard necklaces.  I was really intrigued by the idea of using corrugated cardboard to make "beads," so I thought I'd give it a try myself.  Last weekend our town held its annual Lemon Festival, so I painted myself a lemon necklace to wear there.  And since Halloween is always on my mind, I painted myself a skull and bones necklace too.  Here are the results!

Let's Make Some Cardboard Beaded Necklaces!

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Aren't they cute?   Let's get making!

Materials:

• Yarn
• Scissors
• Skewers or Toothpicks
• Invisible Tape
• Paint
• Paint brushes
• Clean, corrugated Cardboard
• Pencil
• Paper

Let's Make them!

1.  Doodle out a design for your beads on a piece of paper.  Then, cut it ou.

2.  Trace your design onto a piece of clean, corrugated cardboard.  Check the cardboard's orientation!  Make sure that the long holes run across your beads, since that's how you'll string them with yarn.

3.  Paint your cardboard beads!  (I just used tempera paint and made sure not to water it down because I didn't want the rigidity of the cardboard compromised.)  If you're going to wear these outside, I recommend painting the back of the beads too.  The cardboard is pretty light, so it will flip around as you wear the necklace.  You don't want to have the brown cardboard back exposed.

4.  Now is time to string your beads!  Art Bar's original painted bead necklaces post suggested using needles, but I ended up taping a skewer (or a toothpick) onto my yarn.  Then, I jiggled the skewer/ tooth pick through my beads to string them.

5.  Once you've got a whole bunch of cardboard beads strung onto the string, you could make a necklace (or a bunting- wouldn't that be cute for Halloween?)

And here's a photo of me actually wearing the necklace to our local lemon festival. 

(Unfortunately it was windy outside, so the necklace kept flipping over.  I didn't paint the back, so the cardboard kept getting seen.  Oops!)

Happy Making!

If you liked this craft, you might like these as well!

• Flower Egg Carton Wreath
• DIY Cardboard Piggy Bike Basket
• Nail Polish Marbling with Kids!
• Paper Plate Masks and Purses!
• Milk Carton and String Art Necklaces
• DIY Milk Jug Rings

Let's Keep in Touch!

You can always find other fun ideas on my Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter accounts!


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