gumball necklaces

M had a play date today with one of her best wee friends from school. It's not a very nice day outside so I thought this afternoon might be a good time to let them make these. They were inspired by my crafty mum friend Rachael ( I really wish she'd start blogging so I could credit her properly!). She got the idea from joyfolie who made this one...

Lovely huh.

The rest of my inspiration came from spotting a big jar of gumballs at K Mart for $5. Sooooo much cheaper than big beads!

I loved the colours.

It's pretty easy to do. Use a small drill bit to drill holes through each of the gumballs. They're sort of hollow so it's not tricky. Thread them onto ribbon tying a knot in between each ball.

I used big needle adn wrpped some tape around the pointy end to protect little fingers. I found these butterfly shapes that I thought would look cute and be easy for wee hands to stick on too.

They drew a plan first...

 And then threaded. The butterflies were stuck, one on each side.

Pretty cute!

By the way. I let the kids eat one gumball each just to have them realise how yuck they taste. They're really only good for making necklaces : )

Oh- and unless you plan to spray varnish them to seal them  I wouldn't recommend wearing them in the rain or on really sunny days!